We Can Hurt Together
by VaderWasFramed
Summary: Lainey has just set a new personal record for the stupidest thing she's ever done while intoxicated. She's woken up with a hideous tattoo before... but never a bite. And her friend is telling her it's a werewolf bite. How will she cope with the consequences? Will she flourish? Or will this finally break her, once and for all?
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note:_ _Thank you for giving this a chance! If you stick with it, you might not even be disappointed - because speaking from personal experience, starting an OC fic in this fandom is always a gamble. But this one is a good bet. Because I'm going to do it differently._

 _If you're looking for a cookie cutter fic that steals plot straight from the show, this isn't for you. If you're looking for a Derek/OC romance where Derek is that tall, dark, dangerous stranger that immediately falls for some random teenage girl who happens to get mixed up in the supernatural bullcrap of Beacon Hills - this is not for you. This story will take time. I'm building Lainey's story._

 _Please, don't let this long note scare you off. I expect the first few chapters to be a slow start. Stick around at least to chapter five. Things WILL pick up, I promise. But Lainey is a completely independent character - she can't just fall into this world. There's got to be a REASON she ends up with Derek. I have plans for this fic. Give it a chance, and give me *constructive* feedback if you're unhappy for some reason. Otherwise, how will either of us enjoy this at all?_

 _BLANKET DISCLAIMER FOR THE REST OF THE FIC: I do not claim Teen Wolf or any of its characters or plots as my own. I just borrowed them!_

 _Final note... this story is - for now - rated **T** for accessibility, profanity and material that is probably not suitable to children. May get promoted to an M rating later on_ _;')_

 _If you're a child, don't read this fic. Maybe go watch Spongebob. Or... eat some fruit snacks. Fruit snacks are great. You know what? Why do you have to choose? You don't have to choose, you're a child. Do both._

 _Okay. Enough digression. Get comfy! Savor the drama! And happy reading._

* * *

 **Prologue**

Kelsey had a plan. She had a plan, she reminded me, as she had reminded me countless times before over the past few months. It was all set up, all ready to go. But something changed. Me. I was now included in this plan. She made me apart of it. She would fix me. She would fix my tumor. She would fix herself and we would be fixed, she said. Well, the influence of pills had to have some effect on her logic, didn't it?

Still, she made compelling points. She'd worked her ass off to get the name and the address right, the details and everything else as accurate as she dared. Word spread fast in Beacon Hills. Whatever this guy was into, it was serious. Like, beyond the authorities serious.

If you asked me, it had that sort of… I don't know… conspiracy-theory-after-taste to it. From what Kelsey described, people didn't know a whole lot about it. They knew a few key details and they'd drawn their own conclusions about this guy and whatever was going on with him. Kelsey had heard any number of versions, but they all had a few common details.

He was alone. He was living in an abandoned warehouse. He never came out at night, and _never_ during a full moon. He had showed up to a few people's parties, like he was looking for someone or something, but he never stayed very long. And some people swore that they'd seen his eyes glow bright red, but that sounded like another ghost story.

Yeah. Like I said. This was most likely going to turn out to be bogus. I fully expect to come out of this visit a little poorer and a little more fucked up, since from what she'd heard, we could expect just about anything and not be disappointed… but either way, I know that it'll be an interesting story. And I only had so much time left, so what the hell? I was down for an adventure.

Kelsey seemed convinced there was more to him than just some glowing eyes and a Boo-Radley-esque lease on life, but I suspected that when we get in there we're gonna find some freak who's convinced he's in the final stages of morphing into a dragon and he needs pure virginal blood to give him enough strength to complete his transformation. Or, you know, anything else crazy and irrational like that.

The warehouse looked no different from the countless others in this part of the city. That's why, if you didn't know what to look for, you'd completely overlook it. The railroad depot was never really a well-used asset in the city, even when it was functional. That was years before now. Probably decades past, even.

Kelsey was pretty scarce on the details. She's visited here before, so she led the way. There have been a handful of other encounters she's had with this guy—and that's the _only_ reason I'm following her into the shadows right now. That, and the pills I took about an hour ago after dinner are now melting my conscience, and warping my judgment.

The shadows seemed to watch us as we ascended the steps. She wasn't afraid. The city of Beacon Hills is generally a pretty quiet place at night, and that night was no exception. The moon was high, illuminating the black, cloudy sky with a crescent, the same shape that my nails made as they cut into the skin of my palms. I was nervous.

Call it a gut feeling. Call it basic survival instincts. Call it the basic use of sight, because it was obvious that a giant deserted warehouse in the middle of the warehouse district was not the safest place in Beacon Hills at half past two in the morning—even for a couple of girls like us. You couldn't count on the police to patrol around here, and I knew no one would be around for blocks. Total isolation, smack dab in the city.

I couldn't even see any pigeons camping out on the power lines or anything. It was just fucking creepy.

"Kelsey," I whispered, and she hushed me.

"Be quiet!" She admonished. "It's just a little further. Is your head okay?"

It wasn't. It was sore as hell, and the stairs weren't helping. I was starting to get woozy and my reflexes weren't as sharp as they usually were thanks to the cocktail of drugs I'd swallowed. How many flights did we have to climb? "This better be fucking worth it," is what I ended up saying.

She hushed me again. "It will be."

We didn't speak until we reached the top of the stairs. Luckily, we only had to climb up two flights. Coulda been worse. Coulda been better, too. The landing wasn't very big. It was cement with rusty metal rails, one corner of which had busted out, leaving a sizeable gap that was just waiting for you to fall through. If you hit the ground you probably wouldn't even die. It wasn't that high up, after all. You'd just break your neck—or worse.

Kelsey approached the door. It was large and industrial, with a small rectangular window. Judging by the looks of it, the inside of this place was even darker than the outside, if that was even possible.

"Here goes nothing," She muttered, which did not instill confidence in me.

For fear of painting the wrong picture, let me clarify by saying that Kelsey wasn't some totally fearless leader in all of this. She didn't seem ready to charge in roaring, fists pounding her chest and consequences be damned. I just couldn't shake the feeling that we were in the process of making a huge mistake—an instinct, by the way, which does not typically register with me—and the closest person I had to gauge reality on was trying to convince me to… what, exactly? She hadn't said.

It didn't matter, now. The door shut behind us, engulfing us in total darkness. "Kelsey!" Irritation singed my nerves and I fully expected her to shush me again, so I had a comeback locked and loaded. To my surprise, it never came. Her fingers sought out mine and wrapped tightly around my hand.

"Just… there should be some stairs. It's not normally this dark!"

"We didn't think to bring a flashlight?"

"It wasn't exactly at the top of my list, no!" Kelsey and I inched along the floor.

Whatever we were walking on, it felt like metal grating. It was pretty damn stable, too. There was no swaying, or creaking. In fact, there wasn't much sound coming from anywhere at all. There might have been some rustling or the occasional squeak from rats, but those noises are so normal to me that they hardly registered.

I was expecting some lighting, for sure. A fire some kind. Perhaps a burning trashcan; _that_ seemed to be a favorite on the streets. The windows were big but they were way higher up than we were, and there weren't nearly enough to really make much of a difference.

The floor suddenly dropped. "Great. _More_ stairs."

"Here, just don't let go," Kelsey said, tightening her grip on your hand. "They're pretty steep, but there's not as many as there were outside."

I tripped over the last two steps and Kelsey panicked when I nearly face planted. Clambering back to my knees, I took her hand and tried not to notice how she shook as she helped me up.

At the bottom of the stairs, she let go of my hand and grabbed my wrist. "This way." She tugged me to the left. Deeper we descended. The floor was a decline, and it felt like we were venturing further into someone's lair, like a couple of bugs about to crawl straight into the middle of a spider's web.

"Hello?" She called, after she stopped us. "Who's there? Derek?"

My eyes were wide as I searched blindly through the dark and strained my ringing ears for any sounds of movement. "I can't hear anything," I told her. "Do you see him?"

"Derek!" She yelled. "Come on! We had a deal!"

"Deal?" A deep voice from far off to the right retorted. It was such a sudden and unexpected response that I jumped about three feet in the air, cursing under my breath. "Is that what we're calling it?"

"Derek, thank God! How can you see a damn thing? Do you have to keep it so dark?"

"Sorry," He said flatly. The sound of footsteps echoed as he came closer to us. "I didn't realize I could control the sun now."

"Can you control a flashlight?" I bit back, and the footsteps quieted. Then, a hesitant step.

"You brought someone else?" He wasn't happy.

"This is Lainey!" Kelsey exclaimed, as if introducing a child or pet to their new friend. "She's got a brain tumor."

"Fuck's sake, Kelsey!" I scowled, smacking her arm.

"Oh, sorry," She murmured, as though she hadn't realized she was being rude. I could practically feel her shrug. "It's true, you know?"

"We didn't agree on two." Derek was close now. He couldn't be more than a few feet in front of us.

"What's the big deal?" Kelsey persisted. "She needs this!"

"I don't even know what ' _this'_ is," I said. "Can someone explain what's happening?"

"You haven't explained?" Derek growled, his annoyance rivaling my own.

"I was getting there!" Kelsey exclaimed, defensively. She pulled me closer. "Can it really cure anything?" She asked, speaking to Derek now.

"Yes," He smoothly replied. "Anything."

"Even cancer?" She prodded.

"Even cancer."

"Okay," She sighed. "She'll do it."

"Wait a minute!" I pushed her away. "You can't decide for me!"

"Lainey, come on! Don't you want to be cured?"

"I told you it's not possible!" I exclaimed, becoming upset now.

"What if it was?" Derek quietly interjected. "Pretend for a second that it was possible. What would you be willing to risk?"

For a long moment I didn't respond. I didn't really want to, to be honest, but I found myself answering anyways, since I'd never really considered the possibility before. "Depends. What are the chances of success?"

"For a healthy person? Pretty good. For someone that's as sick as you?... Fifty-fifty."

I recoiled and Kelsey, as if sensing my hasty rejection, desperately gripped my shoulder. "Wait!" She cried. "Just wait a second, Lainey! Would you just think about it?"

"Fifty-fifty!" I shook my head. "No way! Not if I'm risking my life, those chances are shit!"

"As opposed to what?" Kelsey challenged. I grew quiet. "Fifty-fifty against no chance at all? Lainey, come on."

"This isn't even real!" I suddenly proclaimed, stumbling as I flung my hand out. "He can't _actually_ cure me!"

"Then what do you have to lose?" Kelsey asserted.

"Look, if she's not brave enough then this wouldn't be the right fit for her anyways."

Slowly, I turned towards his voice. "…Excuse me?"

"It seems like you're not cut out for it. If you have no faith in yourself then you'd never make it."

"I have faith in myself—"

"Then what are you afraid of?"

I stared into the dark. Growling, I hissed, "I'm not _afraid_ , you asshole."

"Really? Prove it."

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Kelsey was never really a friend, per se. We knew each other, though, and we got along well enough. It's not like we had a ton of options. Mostly, we killed time together.

I've known for a while now. There were treatments for this sort of illness. Lots of them. Trust me. I researched it on the internet after I was diagnosed. The doctors didn't tell me a whole lot at the time, because I was only ten, so they focused on making sure dad understood.

None of the crap I found mattered to him. I went to the library and found three different clinical trials. He pointed out reasons that I wouldn't qualify. The surgeries that were offered were way too expensive, he said. And chemo was absolute hell. He told me I wouldn't survive one round of that shit, and I thought he may be right about that one.

I guess the only upside is that there were no real symptoms. It's a tumor, tucked up in my head somewhere. That much I know. I don't know how it works or what the nitty, gritty details are, but I know that as it gets closer to 'go time' for me, I'll start seizing a lot more and my body will grow weak. They say I still have at least two years before that happens. For now, it's a nearly relentless migraine.

All in all, I'm told that I'm lucky. A lot of people have it worse. I guess that's true. Anyways, as I got older and my hormones kicked in, something inside me changed. I'm not sure if the knowledge that I'm living on borrowed time rotted something inside me, but all I know is the only way for me to feel truly alive was to either (1) drink until I forgot my own name, (2) take pills until I was happy, or (3) find some petty way to fuck my dad over. That last one gets old after a while, though.

I don't stay home much anymore. Lots of people don't care if you crash at their place after a party, and there's always a party happening somewhere in Beacon Hills.

There were people I partied with, and people I knew from the shelter I'd occasionally stay at. It was called The Beacon (original, right?) and they didn't ever ask any personal questions, so it worked when I was feeling desperate and bitter and just wanted to be alone.

Last night had been one of those nights. Kelsey is a girl that I met here at the shelter a while ago. It was still early, and I was nursing a hangover. Besides the cramped rooms they'd stuffed with bunk beds and sleeper sofas, there was the huge, communal room that we all call the rec room. The rec room doubled as a dining room. It was probably about the size of a hospital waiting room and it had several round tables dotted throughout it. Kelsey and I shared the one by the bookshelves.

I had my feet kicked up, and was listening to her tell me about her cousin's new baby.

"She's barely, like, six pounds. They have to keep her in the hospital for another week or something like that. Can you imagine? _Six_ pounds."

"Babies are money pits. Do you know how much it's going to cost her to keep that thing there for a week? They charge you just to get to hold it now. It's a scam."

Kelsey was looking at me like I just told her I thought Avatar was the best movie ever made. "What's wrong with you?" She said. "You know what—don't answer that. You'll just say something rude."

I promptly closed my mouth and returned to shuffling the cards in my hand.

She couldn't seem to let it be. "I mean, don't you want to have babies?"

My back stiffened and my hands froze. For a moment, I didn't speak. She stared at me expectantly until I finally said, "No, I'd die before it even turned three years old. I would never do that to my kid."

"What?" Kelsey frowned and shook her head. "What are you even talking about?"

Pursing my lips, I shrugged a shoulder. "I mean, I'm going to die in two years. So what's the point of having a baby?"

"Shut up," she scoffed, shaking her head again but more in annoyance this time. "You're such a fucking asshole. That's not even funny."

"I'm not joking," I scowled. "If I was joking I'd tell you I don't need one because I love other people's babies. That's just a flat out lie. I don't love other people's _anything_. Wouldn't you prefer the truth?"

"Oh, okay, so the truth is you think you're going to _die_ in two years? From what? An overdose?"

"No," I made a bridge in the cards and they flicked noisily as they shuffled into place. "A low-grade astrocytoma."

"What the fuck is that?" She snapped, angry now, as she always was when she didn't understand something. "Cut it out!"

"It's a brain tumor." My blunt, matter of fact manner of speaking was only instigating her further. I watched as she stood from the table, her chair screeching across the worn wood and crashing to the floor.

"Stop! Would you just stop? It's not fucking funny!"

Surprised, I focused on her with my most sober expression I could muster, and looked her dead in the eye. "Kelsey, I'm not joking."

For a moment, nothing happened. She just stood there and looked at me. I watched as her expression melted from rage to hesitancy, and finally, fear. "Wait…" She said, her voice weaker. She stepped closer, her hand reaching for something I couldn't offer her. She was obviously confused. "Lainey?"

I looked down, clenching my jaw. This is why I hated having friends. Telling them _sucked_. "It's not a big deal," I lied with a shrug. "I've known about it for a long time."

"But… but what about, like, medicine?" She grabbed her chair and sat it upright. When she scooted closer to me, she reached out to take my hand, and I let her because she probably needed the comfort. "Isn't there surgery or radiation or something?"

"Forget it, Kelsey. It's not possible for me," I tonelessly told her, my eyes fixed on the card. Two of hearts.

"What are you talking about? Is it too bad?"

"No, I told you; it's low grade."

"Then what?" She shook her head and withdrew her hand, that telltale frustration coming back into her eyes. "Why can't you just get some treatment?"

"My dad," I finally said, shortly. "Everything's too expensive, okay?"

"But won't insurance cover it?"

"We don't _have_ insurance, Kelsey!" I dropped the cards and leaned back in my chair, withdrawing my hand from hers to cross my arms. "God, I knew I shouldn't have told you! It's _not a big deal_ , okay?"

We were quiet then, as Kelsey processed the news and thought about the fact that I couldn't get treatment. "That's fucking bullshit," She told me, and I stayed quiet and sighed. "There's gotta be some kind of program or, like, not-for-profit kinda deal—or some surgeon that would do it prome bone. _Something!"_

"Pro-bono," I corrected. "Prome bone isn't a thing."

"Fuck off!" She growled. "I know what pro-bono is. Would you just fucking listen? Can't we go to a hospital? I'll come with you! Let's go fill out some forms! Fuck this, you're not dying, Lainey, that's just fucking stupid!"

"I've tried, okay? I can't do shit without my birth certificate!"

"Well go get your fucking birth certificate, then!"

"It's not that easy! I can't!"

"Why not?" She exclaimed, like I was making things more complicated just for my own twisted enjoyment.

I paused, scowling, gritting my teeth and _hating_ that I needed to divulge so much about exactly how fucked up my life was. "My dad _sold_ it, okay?"

Kelsey was horrified. She gaped at me, her mouth hanging open as she tried to understand.

I looked away and hugged my arms to my stomach tighter. "He traded it to some illegal immigrants in exchange for a pound of coke."

She rocketed from her chair again. "Ray is doing _coke_ now?!"

I shrugged irritably at her. "How should I know?!... I don't _think_ so! I mean, I think he just sold the crap to pay someone off! You know how Ray is... He owes everyone in this city something." Bitterly, almost as an afterthought I admitted, "I'm just surprised he didn't try to sell me for real. At least it was just my identity."

"So some little foreign kid is bouncing around using your name?" Kelsey asked in morbid curiosity, and I shrugged. I was telling the truth about Ray; this piece of news would be hard to hear and it is low—even for Ray—but it wouldn't come as too big a shock considering... Well, it's _Ray_. "So you really can't do anything, can you? Not without an identity. Christ! You can't even get a GED! What the fuck are you going to do?"

"Nothing," I told her, leaning back in my chair to cross my feet and flip through the cards again. "Take another fistful of pills and stay as far away from any government agencies as I possibly can."

"Nope," She stood up and stormed towards the door. The woman who kept track of who stayed the night called after her when she passed by, waving her clipboard, and Kelsey pointed at me as I stood up. "I'm gonna figure this shit out!"

"There's nothing—" I started, and she disappeared through the door. The woman called after her again and I kicked the leg of the table. "Kelsey..." I sighed and looked around the room.

People weren't even worried about it. Not here. They kept their heads down and thought hard about their own miserable lives, and I was left to explain to _Clipboard Gina_ why Kelsey left without checking out.

"Sign there," She told me, pointing at the line by Kelsey's name.

I raised an eyebrow at her. She wanted me to forge? Ordinarily, I wouldn't give a shit, but this place was one of the only sanctuaries I had left in town. I wasn't jumping to ruin that at this exact moment. Impatient, the woman shook the clipboard.

"Do I look like I give a shit?" She snapped, and I grabbed the pen to scribble a line down. "And there," She added, pointing at my own name.

"Oh, come on!" I threw my hands up. "I'm not even done eating yet!"

"You sign or I will!" She threatened. "Either way you're out of here as far as I'm concerned! Girl, there are two things I'm supposed to do in this job. Clean the bathrooms, and get signatures. I ain't havin' another brat leave without signing! I need this job, honey," she finished, unsympathetically.

Muttering a few choice words, I initialed by my name with a clear, bold F. U. and threw the pen down on the table so hard it bounced off and fell to the floor. I yanked my jacket on and stepped around her.

"You gonna pick that up?" She asked.

Bending down, I pocketed the pen and stood back up to present her with my middle finger as I backed away.

"Oh, you can _forget_ comin' back here, you little shit!" She hollered. Lifting the clipboard up high, she made a huge show about stabbing her finger into the paper. "Banned! For LIFE!"

"You can't do that, Gina!" I dug through my pockets for either my cigarettes or my pill bottle, whichever I touched first. As I passed through the door, I think she might have yelled something to the effect of _the hell I can't_ at me, but it's unclear since I was already outside.

It was cold out, and _loud_. The mid-morning sky was cloudy and the wind nipped at my body through my jacket and sang in my ears. I wrapped my jacket tighter and clenched my jaw. The pressure in my head was enough to make me physically sick. If you've ever had a migraine, you'll know what I mean.

Down the road, in front of a restaurant, a construction crew had torn up the sidewalk. The owner of the restaurant was in a screaming match with the one of the men wearing hard hats, his hands making obscene gestures to the huge mess blocking the entrance to his door. The jackhammers they used were so loud, they might as well have been drilling into my head.

It was just too much. I clutched at my ears and I blacked out for a second, so I can't be sure, but I think I might have cried out just before I fell over. When I came to, someone in a pantsuit was picking me up by my elbow.

I couldn't hear them. Their lips moved and they looked concerned as they helped me stand up straight, but I didn't comprehend a word they said. I shook my head at them and stumbled away. Their hand touched my back one more time before I swatted them off and made my way down the street, away from the noise.

Passing pedestrians dodged me and one car blared its horn at me when I walked straight in front of it, causing them to slam on their brakes. I was so disoriented, I hallucinated that the man in the front seat of the black car had red glowing eyes that glared at me from behind the tinted windshield.

I pushed on. After about a half a block, the ringing in my ears were reduced to the level of a far-off tugboat. The pads of my fingers gently massaged my eyes and I slowed to a stop right where I was, taking slow, trembling breaths.

My hands shook violently as I patted my pockets. Finding the bottle in my jacket, I popped off the lid and shook out some pills. I tossed them in my mouth and struggled not to choke as I swallowed them dry.

Someone grabbed my shoulder. I made the stupid, _stupid_ mistake of stopping right in front of an alley. The traffic in the street didn't even pause to notice as someone pressed something sharply into my back.

I felt breath on my neck and the hand squeezed my shoulder tightly. My hearing was still wonky, so the only sound I could distinguish was a muffled voice, hissing in my ear, and the object at my back threatening to cut right through my jacket.

They guided me off of the street and into the alley. Somehow, tucked back out of sight and away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Beacon Hills, it wasn't so hard to hear.

Manholes were blowing up steam and a few of the windows in the buildings surrounding us were open, but no one poked their face out when I was shoved into the brick wall behind a dumpster.

"Give me your fucking pills!" A crazed man yelled as I struggled catch my balance, skinning my hands on the rough wall. His dirty grey hair was long and thin, and his hands were covered in dirt. He'd been on the street a really long time. It was clear just by looking at him. "Are you fucking retarded?! I said give me your pills, bitch!"

The blade in his hand flashed. It made me sick with anger, but I gripped the pill bottle that was still in my hand tightly. The yellow container rattled as I held it out to him, my other hand still held up defensively.

He took me by the shoulder and pressed me into the wall. Flipping the blade of the knife down, he snatched the bottle from my fingers. His eyes flicked over me. "You got any cash?"

I couldn't even form a coherent word, too physically sick and shaken to process a logical thought. He didn't wait for an answer—though, to be fair, it may have been rhetorical anyways. I flinched when his hand started patting my pockets. He groped at my sides, pressing the knife against my throat in warning when he stepped close enough to bury his fingers deep into the pockets of my jeans. I could feel his knees brush against my thighs and I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath, keeping my face turned away.

He stuffed what little cash I had down his pants and I tried to choke down the vomit that sat heavy in my throat. With a crazed glint in his eye, he undid his pants and eyed me hungrily. "You got short hair, but I think those are supposed to be tits. You a little girl?"

"Go to hell!" I spat on him and he backhanded me without a second's hesitation.

Stars burst in my eyes and I tried not to grunt when he spun me around and shoved me back against the wall, his hand feeling along my lower back and venturing even lower to my ass and between my legs. "Go ahead, little girl. Scream and fight if you want. I _like_ it when they buck. Makes it _fun_."

His hands were around the front of me and I had no intention of feeding into his sick fantasy. I grabbed the pen from my pocket and tried to swipe at him with it, but he just pushed harder against me and put his hand to my back to press me into the wall until I couldn't breathe. I grunted when he felt around for the fastening of my belt.

Something glass shattered just behind my head and I yelped when the man went stiff. For half a breath, nothing happened. Then, I was yanked backwards as he fell to the side and his arms, locked around my waist, dragged me with him. My head bashed against his bony shoulder and I landed right on top of him. He was skin and bones and the smell of him alone made me sick.

Hysterically, I pried his hands off of me and batted his arms away, clambering to roll off of him. I gawked at his limp body, sprawled across the pavement with broken glass and liquor soaking his hair and the neck of his dirty shirt.

"Hey, kiddo!"

I jumped at the unexpected voice and my head snapped up. I looked straight into the eyes of my father. He still grasped the broken neck of a liquor bottle in his hand. "You owe me a bottle of Castillo."

My head throbbed painfully. This entire situation felt unreal. My father... what was my _father_ doing here? I couldn't fully compute it, didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to think about him saving me. Didn't want to think about him doing something selfless for me, because that would suggest he wasn't a heartless bastard, and if there's anything in this world that I'm absolutely sure about, it's that my father is the worst person I know.

I'm okay. It's just a bad day. Just another really, really shitty, bad day.

Ray was watching me, like he was just as surprised and unsure of himself as I was. I pushed myself up and ignored him. Standing on uncertain legs, I brushed myself off and stepped around him, heading towards the light of day on the street.

"Hey! Wait a minute!" He whined, putting his hands out. "What kinda thanks is that?"

I turned back to glare at him in the dark alley. "What are you doing here, Ray?"

" _Ray?"_ He mocked, stumbling to the side to catch his balance. "How's about a 'dad' every once in a while? I've earned that, don't you think?"

I started towards him and his eyes widened as he straightened up. Misreading the situation, he held his arms out as if to welcome a hug from me, and I placed my hand on his shoulder to shove him aside. He stumbled back with an indignant yell and I went to turn over the unconscious man lying in the alley.

He reeked of sweat, unwashed hair and cheap rum, the subtle metallic hint of blood wafting through. I knew that last part was thanks to my dad. The man's face was unshaven and now that I could get a good look at him I saw that he had a folded, black bandana wrapped around his forehead.

Lately I'd heard about a group of guys cropping up around town. They called themselves the Alibi Gang, named after the bar they frequented about five blocks east of here, and they apparently stole cars and raped women. Their whole shtick was that they _always_ had an alibi, since they vouched for each other and paid off the whole bar to vouch for them too. I shuddered to think how close I'd truly come to… to...

The pill bottle was in his jacket pocket, along with his knife. I took that, too, just for good measure, thinking of other the other women he might have trapped before who might not have been so lucky, and the women who would cross his path after I walk away.

For a moment I held the knife in my hand and looked at him. What would he have done to me? When would he have stopped? Surely not when I started crying. Definitely not before he finished inside me. Would he have left me there, like a used wad of tissues? Or would he have used this knife to cut my throat?

His jeans were still undone, the zipper down and his underwear hanging dangerously low on his hips. I grew still and let a dark thought wash over me, the hilt of the knife hard in my hand. Who would know? It would serve him right, wouldn't it?...

"What's the matter?" Ray asked from behind me. "He's out cold, trust me. Getting hit with a bottle like that when its still got liquor inside is like getting smacked over the head with a brick."

My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. I loosened my grip on the knife and tucked it into the waist of my jeans. Then, retrieving my pill bottle again, I popped it open and shook out another. I lifted my palm and paused because Ray called out.

When I shot him a dirty look, he held his hand down to me and waggled his fingers greedily. "I will be accepting payments in the form of narcotics today."

I wanted nothing more than to grab the nearest blunt object and smack him in the head with it. But, looking down at the man that laid unconscious before me, I knew that I owed him one. So I dumped the pill into Ray's eager hand and sighed as I closed the bottle before he could ask for more. I needed to preserve what I had. It's not an endless well.

"My cash..." I said to Ray, who was now bent over behind the dumpster to collect a jacket and a shoe string. I don't even pretend to understand what he needed that stupid shoe string for, or how he ended up passed out where he did. I suppose it was lucky that I was attacked in the same alley my father had passed out in. He turned around and teetered on his legs slightly. "You're drunk," I noted.

"Did you say something about cash?" He ignored my accusation about his sobriety in favor of focusing on the prospect of free money.

I pointed down at the man below me. "He stuffed it down his pants," I said, shuddering. "I don't… I can't just…"

"Ah," He pleasantly chirped, pushing me to the side. "Get back. And look away. A girl shouldn't see her father's hands down a strange man's pants."

I snorted and rolled my eyes, but still climbed to my feet and turned my back because even though he was ridiculous, he was right. I didn't want to watch him stick his hands down that jerk off's undies.

"Lainey!" He whined a few short moments later. "What am I supposed to do with _twenty_ bucks?"

I hissed as I sprung to snatch the bill from his sticky fingers. His mouth fell open in a pout and he tried lamely to reach for it, but I stuffed it down my bra before he could. "Nothing," I grumbled. "Absolutely nothing."

He sighed loudly and threw a hand up. "For Christ's sake, Lainey! Did I just feel this gentleman up for free?"

"Gentleman? No. You just groped a member of the Alibi Gang. If I were you, I'd wash my hands, Ray."

His reaction was visceral. As soon as the name of the gang crossed my lips, he went pale as a sheet and looked ready to scream. Ray couldn't even string together a sentence through his shock and panic, and I didn't stick around to find out what the fuss was about.

"Lainey!" He called, gesturing wildly at the man as I left. "Lainey, they're gonna _kill_ me!" A thought struck him. He ran towards the end of the alley, to a chain link fence that led to the private courtyard of the apartment building beside us. "Lainey, go home, get in my stash under the sink, and flush it! I'm going to lay low—" And with that, he hopped the fence. "I'll see you next Friday!" He yelled, and I shook my head as I left the alley for good.

* * *

Late that night, I sat in a booth at my favorite diner. The food was hot and so was the fry-cook. His name was Antonio, and he had the most breath taking, knee weakening golden eyes, and I liked to fantasize that he and I had a torrid love affair. I dipped my toast into the eggs on my plate, busting the yolk.

The door jingled opened and when I looked up I saw Kelsey headed toward my table. I roughly swallowed the dry toast. My coffee mug was hot under my fingers when I picked it up and took a swig of the bitter caffeine. I'd used seven of my twenty dollars for this hot meal; I'm not about to let it get cold just because she looked like she was on a mission from God himself.

She plopped into the cracked leather booth across from me and smacked what looked like a torn corner of a Chinese restaurant menu on the tabletop, rattling the knife and plate of butter in the center. Kelsey shoved them aside to replace them with the paper and tapped it with her finger. "Your golden ticket, Charlie."

I raised an eyebrow at her and noticed she'd written an address across the scrap of paper. "Oh yeah? Did a chocolate factory open up that I didn't hear about?"

"Not a chocolate factory," She grinned. "An abandoned railroad depot. In the warehouse district."

I gave a theatrical shudder and shoveled some eggs into my mouth. "Sounds spooky."

"It is," She gravely nodded. "But this is the answer to all your problems. I've been planning this for weeks, and I was gonna go alone, but now… You're coming with."

She reached for the slice of bacon on my plate and I smacked her hand away. Kelsey pouted her bottom lip at me pathetically and I viciously bit into the bacon to rub it in her face. "What are you talking about, Kels?"

"Your astroglaucoma!" She said.

I scoffed. "Low-grade astrocytoma."

"Yeah, that! It's gonna be all better. I mean, it's not gonna be easy, and you might die, but hey, that's gonna happen soon anyways right? At least this way there's a chance you'll live past nineteen."

"What's this now?" I put my fork down to listen more closely. "Are you talking about a pill? Why do we have to go to Hell's Kitchen to get it? Is it not FDA approved or something?"

"Definitely not," She smirked. "It's…" Kelsey sighed and cast a look around the diner. Even though it wasn't busy, she eyed the waitress that was refilling someone's cup of coffee a few tables down and said, "You wanna finish eating? We should talk about this somewhere private."

"Whatever," I shrugged.

xxx

"My uncle knew him," Kelsey said. "Well, kind of. I think. Maybe not. Pass the bottle, hog!"

"No!" I said, taking another long swig of vodka. "I almost got raped today, did I mention that? He was really old too! And nasty. What did _you_ do today?"

"I told you, I met up with Derek. Come on—share! That's my vodka!"

"Oh, all right," I relented, holding the drink out to her. The clear liquor sloshed and I giggled and smacked my lips, cringing at the taste. That cheap crap was like nail polish remover. "So start from the beginning, I guess." I leaned back and put my feet up on the bench.

"Okay, okay," She sighed. "Do you know what my uncle did?"

Eyeing her, I tried to read her face in search of an appropriate response. Did I know what her uncle _did?_ To her? Yeah, I knew. But is that what she meant? "He was a piece of shit, Kelsey, what do you want me to say?"

She practically flinched. Her grey eyes darkened and she glared at me, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol. "Not _that_. I meant, for his _job_. What he did."

"Oh." I blinked and frowned as I thought back. "No?"

Kelsey sighed and swung her leg over her bench on the other side of the picnic table. We'd left the diner and took a short hike through downtown to the city park. Here, we had privacy. Anyone still around this part of town at night kept to themselves.

Plus, I slept here occasionally, and I stopped by my house to grab that stash my dad had talked about earlier. They were pills. Of what, I had no way of knowing. My dad and I had a similar taste for substance abuse. Uppers, downers, all-arounders—anything, as long as it was prescription, and alcohol for in between doses.

I was saving the pills for after story time. After all, I wanted to remember this part in the morning, didn't I?

Look, I'm a shitty person, and I will fully own up to that if anyone asks. But I don't want to misrepresent the situation. I didn't know much about Kelsey's uncle because I didn't _ask_ about her uncle, and she didn't ask about my dad or my family, and we had a pretty shallow friendship, if I'm totally honest. I don't even know why I told her about my illness. I needed to tell _some_ one, I guess. Some things just can't stay locked away. Especially if they're killing you.

Kelsey flicked the hairband on her wrist, lost in thought. She did that when she thought of her uncle, I noticed. But he died last year. Killed by a mountain lion on one of his famous hunting trips. He'd taken Kelsey with him, and she'd found him afterwards, but she didn't ever like to talk about that—not that I could blame her. Well, served him right, if you ask me.

"He was kind of a jack-of-all-trades, I guess. He did jobs for people." Kelsey's voice always turned cold when she spoke of him. "Pretended to be a valet at a nice restaurant that _didn't_ really have valet, and then stole their car, and then sold it to a garage to flip. Beat up someone who owed someone else money. Sold drugs, and guns. But his specialty was… burning things down and making it look like an accident."

"Jesus," I breathed. I grabbed the bottle of vodka and took three long, deep gulps, and wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve. I'd need it to listen to this, apparently. The drink warmed me up and I set it down and pushed it across the table to her. "Did he teach you any of that?"

She gave me a funny look. "No. He only wanted me for three things: cooking, cleaning, and… our 'special' time. Teaching me what to use to melt through drywall wasn't really a bonding moment for us."

I scoffed. "Typical. Like I said, he's a worthless piece of _shit_."

"Yeah," She dryly agreed, tapping her knuckle on the tabletop. "Anyways, I'll leave out all the boring stuff to tell you the important part. He and, like, two of his buddies helped burn down this guy's house."

"His house?"

"With his family still _inside_." My memory clicked then, and my eyes bulged.

"Yeah! I know what the Hale Fire is! Your _uncle_ did that?"

"Not by himself!" She qualified, as if that made a bit of fucking difference. "There was a lot more to it than that. My uncle and his buddies were just… one small part of the scheme. It's complicated."

"And you expect this guy to just _forget_ that he burned his family alive?"

"No! He doesn't know."

"Great!" I exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. "Well, he's gonna trust us for sure! He'll probably even ask us to tell our friends about him!"

"First of all, you don't _have_ any friends. Second of all, if you want to be miserable for the rest of your short life, then get lost. But this guy is the Real Deal—capital R, D. And we only get one shot at this. So are you in or what?"

I stared her down, and a long silence ensued as I thought my options over. Later, I would blame it entirely on the alcohol and whatever pills I took before we left. But sometimes I wonder if I would have done the same thing stone cold sober.

She watched me scratch at my eyebrow and I could tell her offer was about to expire. Finally, after what must have felt like an eternity to her, I sighed. "Fine. I'm in. What's the plan?"

* * *

I don't know if you've ever gone on a bender, but take it from someone who's had years of experience… waking up is the worst part. I've never really seen myself as a weak girl. Or maybe that's just the self-righteous view I have of my own nature.

But that morning when I woke up, I knew I'd fucked up. Everything hurt. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to lie down. It hurt to sit up. And it _definitely_ hurt to stand. I almost fell over. For a long moment, I didn't even recognize my own house.

Everything was tinged in black. " _Fuck_ , Ray…" I muttered, cursing my dad for whatever pills he unknowingly provided me with last night. "A plague on your house."

Talking hurts, too.

I was in the bathroom. Pro tip… sleep near a toilet. Pain and sickness radiated from my stomach to my chest to my head to my throat, and I didn't even have time to get on my knees before I was throwing up.

I think my insides must have liquefied. I'm pretty sure if someone x-rayed me, I'd be empty. I would be convinced of that, in fact, if it wasn't for my heart throbbing in my head. _Definitely_ not supposed to be there. _Definitely_ not.

The linoleum was a fucking mess. My shoulder felt hot, and I realized when I reached up to push my bangs off my forehead that the flesh in the crook of my shoulder stung.

I tried to look down at it, my mouth twisting down in concentration. My vision spotted again and I took a shuddering breath and grabbed the zipper of my jacket, slowly tugging it down. I pushed away from the toilet to have more room, pressing my back against the tub as I peeled layer after layer of tops off.

Once I was down to my bra, I grabbed hold of the edge of the tub. It squeaked slightly when my sweaty hand slipped, and I gasped as I almost fell.

I leaned on the wall for support and continued to stand still until the room stopped twirling like a top. The floor still teetered, but I managed the few staggering steps that were necessary to reach the sink, and collapsed against it.

To say that I looked like death incarnate would be the understatement of the century. My skin was pallid and damp with sweat. My hair, which is ordinarily short and brown, looked slick with grease and was still sticking up on the top of my head where I'd pushed it back.

But that's not captured my attention. My eyes were fixed, rapt, on the festering wound at the top of my shoulder. I blinked rapidly, hard, trying to clear my vision, trying to calm my heart. I wasn't afraid. I was hurt, not afraid. I _wasn't_ afraid. So why were breaths so short?

An image flashed in my mind. Shadows, moving. Cool breeze and clouds in the night sky covering a crescent moon. My voice, whispering…

 _"Kelsey?"_

 _"Be quiet!" She urged. "It's just a little further. Is your head okay?"_

 _It wasn't. It was sore as hell, and the stairs weren't helping. I was woozy and everything moved sluggishly and felt unnerving thanks to the cocktail of drugs I'd swallowed. How many flights did we have to climb? "This better be fucking worth it," was what I ended up saying._

 _She hushed me again. "It will be."_

I gasped at the memory. Confusion and disorientation made it hard to think rationally. All I knew was my shoulder hurt and it was still bleeding, and I have the most sickening feeling about last night. My lip trembled as I touched the raw, angry flesh. Were those… _teeth_ marks?

A crash came from outside the bathroom and I almost collapsed in fright. It was coming from the living room, I thought. I heard the sound of a cup being knocked over on the glass coffee table. Something else fell and there was a thud as someone moved around.

I opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed a pair of hair shears from the cup we kept inside. The sounds continued, and I grabbed the doorknob with a trembling grip.

Pushing the door open, I stepped into the hall. The sounds had stopped. It was quiet now, and I tried to stay as silent as possible as I crept along the hall and stayed close to the wall, my hands brushing over pictures and decorations as I went. I stopped at the end and peered into the mirror hanging on the wall. In it, you could see the far side of the living room, where the TV was.

The couch was nearby but you couldn't quite see the footrest on the end. Our TV was old, though, and it had a black glass screen. It was dusty but I thought I could see the shape of someone sitting on the couch.

 _Ray?_ I wondered. I tightened my grip on the shears and stepped out.

I gasped. "Kelsey!"

Her head snapped up from where she'd previously been cradling it, and I sighed in relief at the sight of her. She didn't look so bad. A little tired, perhaps, and she needed a shower, but she was outwardly fine.

"Lainey," She breathed. "We did it! We actually did it!"

"What are you talking about?" My voice was little more than a toneless, strained croak.

Kelsey waved me over. Her excitement grated my nerves. I was in no mood for whatever she had planned; I really just wanted to bury my nose in a cup of coffee and a plate of hash browns and not talk for the next half an hour, at least. I was about to say as much, when she lifted the bottom of her shirt to point excitedly at her hip. There was a fresh, bleeding wound, similar to the one on my shoulder. It was on her hip, though. She bounced slightly on the couch as she gestured to it.

"We did it!"

* * *

 _Author's Note: Please leave a_ ** _Review!_**

 _Chapter song: Black Water by Reuben and the Dark_ (this isn't a songfic; some chapters will have a song or two I name at the end that fits the mood.)


	2. Chapter 2

"Did you do this?" I asked, angry and pointing up at the mark on my shoulder. "Did you fucking bite me?"

"What?" Kelsey shook her head in confusion. She watched me with a strange expression. "No, don't you remember… don't you remember what happened? What we did?"

"You _do?_ " It would be a miracle if that were the case. I would assume that she took some of Ray's pills, too, and those had ground me up and left me nothing but a pile of aching bones this morning, but Kelsey wasn't even flinching away from bright lights or sound.

She remembered, though. I could tell just by the look on her face. It was that same look she got right after she met a boy. Kelsey was something of a hopeless romantic, except to an extreme, unhealthy extent. She goes all in and takes it _way_ too far. Her longest standing relationship lasted three weeks. He was an older boy and she swore that he looked just like Richard Beymer, and she moved in to his cheap apartment almost instantly.

I didn't see much of Kelsey for three weeks while she was with him, and I only saw the back of his head in a diner once when they stopped to share breakfast at Minnie's. Let me tell you, the only thing he and Richard Beymer shared was greasy hair and a love for theatrics. His hands never stopped moving the whole meal. I doubt Kelsey got a word in edgewise. The relationship ended abruptly when he kicked her out so he could head to LA to start his 'modeling career'.

That broke her. It was good for me, though, because afterwards for about two months straight, Kelsey went with me to every party and got black-out-drunk every night. We were unstoppable. Then her cousin got pregnant. Don't ask me why, but once again, Kelsey changed. She didn't want to party anymore, now that she had 'to be a role model'.

I continued partying and only saw Kelsey very occasionally at The Beacon. Every time we saw each other, she would allude to some plan she had, some mysterious thing that she was convinced would change everything for her. It sounded made up, and to be perfectly blunt, I thought the cheese had finally slid off her cracker.

She had that look in her eye right now. "Do you know what this means?" There was a slight mania to her voice as she stood from the couch and practically danced over to me. Kelsey laughed giddily and I watched her float around my living room, annoyed and impatient.

Kelsey threw her hands up and spun. "Oh, God! For the first time in my life I feel _good!_ " Her hair flipped around her shoulder and she looked at me with bright eyes, dropping her arms at her side. "How about you?"

I stood there and stared at her. My stomach was empty and growling, my head hurt and I still didn't have a shirt on. I pointed at the front door. "Get out."

Surprise flushed her features and then she threw her head back and laughed, causing me to ball my fists up in frustration. Shedding all pretense, I stared at her and let my face convey exactly what I thought, which was that she had gone _insane_ , and she started across the living room again. "That's a good idea, do you feel like pie? I feel like a slice of pie from Minnie's Diner. You been there? Oh, what am I saying? You love that place! I bet you get pie all the time!"

She was dragging me towards the door and I yanked my hand out of her grasp. "Maybe I wasn't clear enough," I seethed. "Get out of my house. Now."

Her grin fell slightly and when she realized I was serious she frowned. "Lainey, relax—"

"I don't know what happened last night, and you know what? I don't give a crap. I am way too fucking sober to deal with this shit, so just get out. Just go."

"You know what? I don't get you! Why are always so mad all the time?" She pouted.

Feeling my temper boil, I took a few steadying breaths before responding. "Because I have a _constant_ migraine, Kelsey. I always feel like my head is burning from the inside out, and it gives me a bad attitude. And right now, I'm asking you _nicely_."

She snorted. "Lainey, I get it, but no." Before I had the chance to properly explode, she put her hand up. "You have no idea what's going to happen to you! We need to go to Derek!"

"Are you crazy!?" I hissed. " _Fuck_ that!"

"Lainey, this is serious!" She insisted. I stomped over to the door and wrenched it open, making big, long gestures with my arm like I was waving a plane down a runway.

"Out! Out! Get! OUT!"

"LISTEN to me!" She yelled back, a vein in her smooth forehead bulging as she grabbed my arm to emphasize her point. "I know you! I know you wanna go crawl back into your hole and hide out until the parties start up later on! I know that you'd prefer never to see me again! But _this_ —" she said, gesturing to the bite on my shoulder. "This is never going to go away. You don't get a _choice_ anymore!"

With a stony expression, I looked her in the eye. "We always have a choice, Kelsey. And I'm choosing to ignore you."

She continued to yell even as I took her by the shoulders and pushed her towards the door. Her hands flew to the doorframe and she stuck her foot up, trapping herself between the door and the porch. "Listen to me!" She said, urgently, hysterically. "Lainey, I'll tell you what happened last night—"

"I don't care!"

"I did something, okay!?"

I stopped, stepping back to look at her. She had a guilty expression and she pressed on, like she was afraid if she stopped talking I'd dump her ass in the road and our lives depended on what she had to tell me. "I made you do something and you might hate me for it! You probably will, actually, because you might not survive this because of your tumor, but I had to do something Lainey, I _had_ to! You're my friend!"

Her eyes searched my face desperately. I was just looking at her, one hand on my door, the other on the wall beside her foot, and I could see that she was shaking now.

With a low voice, I said, "What did you do?"

Her breath trembled as she gulped and she looked up at me, cagey. "It's… it's not what I did. It's what _Derek_ did. To you. That bite. It's not an animal bite."

"Derek _bit_ me!?" I exclaimed, and she hesitated.

"Lainey… Derek is a werewolf."

I shoved her out of my doorway and slammed the door, turning the lock.

* * *

She's fucking crazy! The whole rest of the morning was spent with me trying desperately to collect myself. My hands shook as I downed a glass of water and when I eyed the stale, week-old pizza box in the fridge I felt my stomach churn dangerously. I knew better than that.

Still, I felt sick from the inside out. Kelsey was a big part of that. I couldn't believe it. I'd known this girl for over a year, and even though we hadn't exactly made a secret handshake and traded friendship necklaces, I thought I knew her. Clearly, I didn't. Turns out she was certifiable.

I've got more than enough of _that_ in my life. Ray has had his freak flag planted firmly in that role since day one, and I can't take another one. I just can't. I don't have room for it in my heart.

Which is what made everything so hard when I opened my door later that night and found her sitting on my porch right where I left her. Okay, maybe not right where I left her; she'd moved to the steps and had her legs splayed across them to block my path.

I had noticed that after about thirty straight minutes of her pounding on the door relentlessly, she'd given up. I had assumed she'd finally left. How was I to know that she'd hung around like a stray cat?

I flashed a scowl at her. Of course, the weather was just as dreary as it had been yesterday, if not more so. It was freezing out and my layers did little to block the bite of the wind. I lifted my hood as Kelsey scrambled to her feet. She was shivering violently, obviously not wearing a coat since it was probably still flung in my living room somewhere, and she had been sitting outside for the better part of ten hours. It was pushing eight o'clock now and I'd planned to pop by Minnie's for a warm meal.

"Lainey!" She gasped, and I noticed as I pushed her out of the way that she was pale and stupidly easy to push off. Even her voice was quivering as she cried, "Wait! Just, wait a minute—"

I pried her hand from my injured shoulder and stopped myself just short of grabbing her arm and flinging her off me. "You're being crazy! You _stayed_ out here!? You know what, I don't care, get out of my way."

"Lainey, no!" Kelsey had never sounded so desperate in her life, as far as I knew. It was sort of pathetic. "Stop, just stop, okay?" And she was in my way again. I clenched my fists and counted to ten and Kelsey took advantage of every second of that as she blabbered on to me, still just as frantic as she'd been this morning. "It's already starting," She said. "The transformation. Can't you feel it?"

"I _feel_ like you're about to make me even later than usual, and that would make me very angry."

"This isn't a joke, Lainey!" She looked like she wanted to just drag me to Derek's lair, but instead she lifted her shirt. "Look!" And that was all she needed to say. Despite the fury, and frankly, exasperation, I felt at the whole situation, the mark on her hip made me stop dead in my tracks.

This morning, it had been bleeding, raw and angry. Now the teeth marks and the wound itself had swollen twice the size it was previously and it had worsened to a bright, sickly purple color. There were strange, faint lines branching away from it that I recognized to be veins.

" _Eugh_ ," I cringed, my nose wrinkling. Inwardly I was worried, like you would be if you were in the hospital and caught a glimpse of a patient who'd been walking around with a nine-inch nail sticking out of their forehead or something else equally disturbing and grotesque, but at the same time my own illness had worn a such a callousness in me that I didn't even blink as I looked up at her. "Might wanna get to an emergency room before that thing busts."

She looked down and covered it with her shirt again, drawing her shoulders back. "It won't bust. It's just going to get worse before it gets better. Don't you remember anything Derek told us?"

"So what I'm hearing is that you're not going to go to the emergency room," I told her, blatantly ignoring her remark about Derek in favor of redirecting the conversation to a more favorable direction.

Kelsey saw straight through it. Reluctance shone in her eyes as she said, "Lainey, I really—"

"Do you know what you need?" I loudly insisted, taking her by the shoulders and turning her around. The anger was still inside me, simmering just under the surface, but I knew one surefire way to make all of this worth it. "A little dab of speed, baby; take you for the ride of your life, snatch you out of this funk. And a cute boy to hold onto with both hands."

She paused and sniffled slightly as we drew father and farther down the street, into the dark and away from the light of the streetlamps. I guided her down the alley that cut to a shabbier side of Beacon Hills, where the best place to party was.

"Derek—"

"Up, up, up!" I cut off. "Shut the fuck up about Derek, okay?"

Kelsey was barely holding back her comment. Her eyes were screaming with an unspoken persistence. She bit her tongue. "Okay, but after… I mean, tomorrow, I guess. We have to go tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow," I placated, not meaning a single syllable of that word.

* * *

The party was well under way by the time we showed up. The houses were close together here, close enough that you could pass your neighbor a drink through the windows, which is exactly what everybody did. There was no such thing as a house party, not here. They gave a whole new definition to phrase "block party."

Speakers and amps were hooked up, extension cords running errantly across the grass and cracked cement patios in their backyards. The houses were filthy but there were so many people and the music was so loud that you couldn't notice much past the stink of alcohol and sweat or the poorly installed strobe lights. This guy even had a couple black lights, and he turned out all the other interior lighting.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these people really know how to party. Drinks flowed freely and drugs were passed along with pizza, cookies and breadsticks. They gave more business to Pizza-Hut than a frat house during the Superbowl. There wasn't much furniture, which was just as well.

Kelsey and I had split apart almost as soon as we stepped foot in the house. There's a sort of mob-mentality that happens at these kind of parties, and when I turned up everyone started cheering. They saw Kelsey was with me and cheered even louder, and before we knew it, we'd been loaded up with red cups and passed a joint and welcomed into the fold. Our habits from months ago resurfaced, and Kelsey went off to find the kitchen while I sought out the most noteworthy group of people I could find.

Presently, I was talking to a guy with dreads who wore a bowling shirt and swim trunks that looked technicolor in this lighting. He also had on crocs with long socks, and a fanny pack covered in stickers and filled with coke. His name was Reese, and he was the most interesting person I'd spoken to in days. Apparently, he was just arrested the other morning for trying to illegally sell hotdogs.

"No, no, no, you don't understand—"

"That's—that's what I call a waste of taxpayer's money," I proclaimed excitedly, my heart racing as someone beside me barked their loud, boisterous agreement. "Do the cops care when little kids sell lemonade in their front yards? Hell no!"

"FUCK no!" Someone echoed.

"They line up and buy the whole god damn pitcher, and make sure someone is close by with a camera to capture the moment for their Facebook page. But one grown man tries to do the same thing, and suddenly it's 'illegal vending.' What sort of justice system is that? Don't these people have anything—anything _better_ to do?"

"They wouldn't have cared!" Interjected one guy with dried vomit on his shirt. "Except you were blocking traffic, remember that, Reese?"

"What the fuck do you know, Broke Feet?" The man with dreadlocks loudly snapped. "Go jump out another window!"

Cheers went up and I was laughing so hard I spilled my drink. Pouting, I told them that I'd be right back and picked my way through the crowd in search of the kitchen, expecting to find Kelsey sitting on the counter with a boy between her legs, like usual.

There was food everywhere. Popcorn was littered across the counters, beer cans that were empty and beer cans that were still full were strung everywhere; pizza boxes lying trampled in the middle of the floor, and chip bags that had fallen open into the fridge. A jug of something red and sticky with slices of oranges had been knocked over and a big puddle spilled out of the fridge and across the floor.

At the edge of the puddle, I spotted the bottom of a Converse. It wasn't until I ventured further into the kitchen that I realized the shoe was still attached to a foot, and it wasn't until I stepped around the counter that I realized it was Kelsey.

She was passed out. Instantly I was by her side. When I touched her, her skin was burning up. I turned her over and brushed the hair in her face back, though some of it was stuck in her mouth, which made me wrinkle my nose distastefully. "See?" I said to her unconscious face. "This is what happens! If you had just gone home like a normal person, you wouldn't be sick—"

"Whoa," Said a boy with a hat turned backwards on his head, his eyes glazed over as he leaned across the counter to poke the back of my head. "Hey, is she all right?"

"What the fuck do you think, Friday Night Lights? Does she look okay to you?"

He seemed put off by my hostility and put his hands up. Before he left, though, he asked, "Hey, have you seen my knife? I can't find—"

I leapt up to snatch the nearest can from the counter and pelted him in the head with it. He yelled a string of insults and curses at me, promising to return with his knife and 'fix that fucking attitude' for me.

By the time I'd propped Kelsey up, someone else had entered the kitchen. They didn't even pay us attention as they stepped over Kelsey's legs to get a spoon from one of the drawers, hollering at someone that they had retrieved said flatware and was consequently returning.

I tried picking her up. I tried everything I knew. Grabbing her under the arms and dragging her towards the back door, which didn't get us very far. Changing directions and taking her by the ankle to drag her towards the dining room, which didn't get us very far, either. And finally, I decided to go back into the living room where the boys I'd previously been chatting to had long since disappeared from.

They were outside now, in the front yard setting a trashcan on fire. I watched as Reese doused the can in something and then his friend tossed a match onto it, and cheers and laughter erupted as the flames burst in the night. I stood there for a moment, at a loss for what to do. Finally I just returned to Kelsey, who was now missing.

Gone. Her body, not where I left it.

"Fuck!" I whirled around. The back door was open. I hurried onto the back porch. "Kelsey!" I yelled. "Kels—"

"Shhhh," Hissed a voice to my left. Someone else was snickering and the first voice hushed them again. "Do you want to get fucking caught?"

I let the door slam shut behind me and stepped farther into the shadows, peering down at the side of the porch. Over the railing, tucked below, I could see the top of a boy's head.

His head popped up and as soon as he saw me he cursed loudly and dropped back down. "Go!" He yelled.

"Hey!" I started forward, my feet smacking the wooden porch loudly, and I watched one tall, lanky guy in a grey Steelers sweatshirt take off across the yard. He hopped the fence and I saw another shorter, fatter kid go chasing after him. His whole body shook with every step and he used his arms just as much as his legs to run. When he tried to jump the fence, he nearly lost his shorts, which were a shiny athletic material that appeared unwashed and stained with god-knows-what.

I caught up to him easily and yanked him off the top of the fence by his shorts. He hit the ground with a loud thud and threw his hands over his face. I loomed over him and he squirmed like a turtle turned on its back. "What the fuck were you doing to my friend?" I hissed, and the kid tried to get up but I kicked him back down.

"Get off, you crazy bitch!" He shrieked, his voice shockingly high. I'd be surprised if he was over the age of fourteen. "Kramer!" He called, seeking someone who was very obviously not coming to his rescue. I assumed it was the taller, older one who skipped out the moment he spotted me on the porch.

"You fat piece of shit," I snarled, not even caring as I ground my heel down into his chest until he could scarcely breathe. "You think it's okay to rape girls!?"

"Augh!" He screeched back, and I lifted my foot off of him so I could stomp his grubby little crotch. He howled, then, and curled on his side with great, shuddering coughs, wheezing in tear-filled pain.

I didn't even blink as I kicked some dirt on him and turned to leave. I left him there, writhing in the grass, fury singing in my veins as I trekked across the backyard and looked up at the back door. A few people had come to watch with interest and they stood by and listened to me taunt them to come down and do something about it.

They scoffed and proceeded to talk shit right back, but I ignored them and went behind the porch, where Kelsey was still lying, passed out. They'd dragged her behind some weeds. Strangely enough, there was a dog chained up, and it had come to sit beside her dutifully with its chest puffed up. It was a mutt, and I think it might have been some sort of a cross between a Rottweiler and a French Bulldog. It was small, black and brown, and bowlegged. Its bat-like ears went back upon my approach and it snarled at me.

"Get!" I tried, shooing at it with my hands, and the dog snarled its lips to growl at me, putting itself between me and Kelsey. "God damnit! Get back!"

I didn't want to throw something at it. I didn't want to hurt it at all, but I needed to get to Kelsey. I knew if it came down to it, I'd have to yell for someone to get the dog's owner, but I thought that was about as dependable as listening to what the weatherman says.

I looked around the yard. Surely there was something to use to distract the small dog. A bone, a ball, a fucking Frisbee—anything? Nothing.

With a heavy sigh, I took to the grass in search of a stick. After about three solid minutes (I'd had to climb the fence, using the fat kid who was still lying on the ground as a boost, and I went across the alley to trespass into someone else's yard that had a tree) I was back, and waving a stick enticingly at the little mutt.

"Look!" I used my most excited, childish voice I could muster. "Look what I've got! This is for you!"

He looked suspicious, but he shifted anxiously and licked his lips. His eyes were glued to the stick. I gave it another shake.

"Wanna get it?" I said, waving it at him as I turned to gesture back wherever his leash led. He stood up and barked at me, practically vibrating as I threw stick. "Go!" He took off, leaping over a wayward lid of the metal grill that sat in the grass a few feet away.

Finally, I went to Kelsey. Her shirt was ripped, and her pants undone. I felt a bizarre combination of sadness and relief, and I noticed that I wasn't nearly as high or drunk as I should be, no doubt because of the shit I was having to deal with.

They had left her here, dumped in the weeds behind the porch like nothing but a pile of garbage. Something metal in the weeds caught my attention. It was a knife—the edge of the blade was bloodied and my heart leapt in my throat. The guy in the kitchen had mentioned a missing knife, hadn't he?

My hands hovered over Kelsey. I saw, then, that besides her ripped shirt—which I now realized was not in fact ripped, but cut—she had cuts under her bra. They'd been trying to cut her bra off and doing a shitty job of it. She was all slashed up now. The fresh cuts overlapped old scars. Her whole upper body was mottled with scar tissue that seemed to come from the under waist of her jeans and continue up her hips, until they stopped, and then started up again just over her stomach, where they disappeared again under her bra. Her uncle? Or had she done that to herself?

It made me furious. I wished I had done more than stomp that kid in the nuts. I wished I had done something more. It felt inadequate, as I took off my jacket and covered her up and tried not to think about how hot her skin felt to the touch or how pale she looked, and maneuvered her into a fireman-style carry.

I had no idea how far we would get, but I had a feeling it wouldn't be too far. All I knew was that it was my fault she was like this. I stumbled through the backyard and into the alley again, where I shuffled and carried her away from the party, toward the city park.

The dog didn't bother us again, and though we got the occasional strange look, the city was bizarrely quiet tonight. We made it within a street of the park before I had to stop to take a break. I wanted nothing more than to dump her right there in the middle of the sidewalk and lay down beside her to catch my breath.

My heart was racing like it hadn't in years, and I knew I should have passed out a long time ago. I was sweating, but it was chilly without my jacket on. I didn't exactly regret giving the extra layer to Kelsey, but it was pretty fucking cold.

Oh, well. Her body was like a little kerosene heater of its own. It blocked some of the frigid February air. Taking a deep breath, I pressed on. I was nearly to the park when a police siren blipped behind me, and the red and blue lights flashed across the windows of a nearby house.

* * *

Talk about a shitty night. There's nothing quite like the feeling of being trapped in the back of a police car. I was screwed; I knew it. I hadn't seen him do it but I knew the officer had taken my name down. Soon enough they'd run me through the system to see if I had any warrants for my arrest—which, as far as I knew, I didn't—and then they'd eventually discover that someone else was using my name, and I'd be screwed. It's all over. I have no idea what would happen, but I knew only bad things were ahead of me. I watched, arms crossed and lip split from being chewed, as a couple of paramedics loaded Kelsey into the back of an ambulance.

I worried how she would pay for that. Ambulances are expensive. She had been through enough, but I knew that the bills would have to be paid by someone. What would she do? That was the thought in the front of my mind when the officer returned.

He opened the door and I glared up at his young, fresh face. He'd been fairly nice to me, all considered, but I still didn't trust him. "Who do we call for her?" He asked me, like I knew.

I shrugged at him.

Irritation seeped into his handsome features and I felt amusement trickle into a grin despite my inherent mistrust of law enforcement when I saw how he was struggling not to get an attitude with me. I'd been like this pretty much since he'd stopped, to, as he would tell it, 'help' us. Somehow, sitting handcuffed in the back of his car didn't feel much like a helping hand. "You don't know her parent's number?"

My, aren't we assuming? I raised an eyebrow at him. "Parents? No, they're dead."

"Her guardian, then." He lifted his hand impatiently at me. "Grandparent? Godparent? Anyone."

"Her uncle died last year," I said with another shrug. "Dunno if she's got anyone. She's been staying at The Beacon."

My jaw clenched at the way his face turned to that of pity. I watched him frown and reflect on this bit of news, and he gave me a curt nod. "All right," Was all he said.

He shut the door and I watched him approach an older, more experienced officer with brown hair and a wrinkled face. I thought he might have been the Sheriff, but I wasn't quite certain. He looked back at his officer's car where I was, and I sank lower in the seat with a scowl, as though he could see me watching them. The Sheriff looked back with a tired expression and gave his officer a short response.

With that, he returned to the car and opened my door again. "Out," He told me, gesturing to the ground. "Keep your hands where I can see them after the cuffs are off."

Shock, pure and simple. I couldn't believe my luck. I thought… well, I thought it was all over. They weren't taking me to the station? They weren't going to… I don't know, charge me for something? I wanted to ask him, but I wasn't an idiot, so I got out of the car and let him remove the cuffs.

Turning back with a wary expression, I side-eyed him and rubbed at my wrists while he spoke. He looked conflicted, like he'd been expecting to take me back to the station as well, and I noticed the Sheriff watching us speak from off to the side where he had just watched the ambulance leave down the street.

"I'm going to ask, even though I don't expect a straight answer from you. Though, it would be good for you if you could try to be honest. Do you know how to contact your father?"

Of course. They _would_ be interested in him. I was sure there should at least be one warrant out for him. I am now doubly surprised they're not using me for bait. It was like this was all one big game, and if I slipped then it was all over and I would lose.

I shouldn't tell them. I really, really shouldn't. If dad were to be arrested, I'd seriously be on my own. What would even happen to me if they found him? I didn't turn eighteen for another four months.

But then, what would happen to me if I _didn't_ tell them? What if I didn't cooperate? From the way the Sheriff was watching us closely with his arms crossed, I thought that option would somehow be worse. It was like they already knew how I would answer. It all felt like some big, shitty set-up.

So, I surprised them. I told them the truth. Scratching my ear, I looked away and said, "Side Pot," naming the hole-in-the-wall bar in downtown Beacon Hills.

It was just that. A name. The name of one of a handful of bars that my dad regularly ran his tab out at. They had a one in five chance of finding him, assuming he'd even _be_ at the bar and not somewhere even I didn't know where to look for him.

The surprise on his face was priceless. He had a line ready to recite, something about taking me to the station and probably something a little more troubling about my dad, but my single phrase clamped his trap shut with a click.

"Side Pot…" He turned to look at the Sheriff. "Okay," He said, slowly. "Well, then we'll try to contact him there. You did the right thing."

I wasn't so sure that was true. "Thanks for the validation, five-oh. We good?"

He started to say something about giving me a ride home and I waved him off.

"No, no, no, _no_." I started backing away and he told me to stop. "Am I under arrest?"

Bad idea. What am I doing? The officer's eyes flashed with frustration and alarm and I saw the Sheriff start in our direction.

"Should you be?" He asked, like he'd been waiting for this all night, and he swiped to grab at my arm. Reflexively I yanked out of his grasp and darted away, not daring to turn my back to him.

"Hey!" I pointed at the officer as the Sheriff hurried to join us and suddenly the officer and I were trying to speak over each other. He was telling me to settle down and I was accusing him of trying to grab me, and the Sheriff tried to diffuse the situation.

"Officer Trenton," The Sheriff said in an exasperated tone, pointing to the car behind him. "Get back to the station. You have paperwork to do."

"I—"

"Go!" Sheriff barked, and his officer sent me one last scathing glare, which I returned with a taunting finger wiggle that the Sheriff stepped in front of. "Get over there," He practically growled, like he knew me.

"I just want to go to the hospital!" I said, loudly, hoping that Officer _Trenton_ caught every word of this as he retreated to his car. "And he tried to grab me!"

"Okay, that's enough," Sheriff warned, and I closed my mouth and crossed my arms. "Now, you've done good tonight," He told me. "You helped your friend. You told us where to find your dad. Don't ruin that, okay? I really don't want to have to take you in for anything. I really, really don't."

"All _right_ ," I took a deep breath and sighed, scrubbing my hair short hair restlessly. "Can I just go to the hospital?"

"Is that really what you want?" He asked, already turning to the car. "You don't want to go home?"

"No," I said, practically snapping at him again. "Just take me to Kelsey."

* * *

Thank God for small miracles, but he didn't try to start small talk. He left me alone. I had to sit in the back of the cruiser, of course, and he had to radio in to dispatch that he was escorting a civilian to the hospital, but beyond that we were silent the whole way there.

It wasn't until we were in the hospital that I actually heard him speak again, and even then it was to a worker at the desk in the entrance. "Evening, Pam," He said.

She was eyeing me hesitantly but kept a fairly pleasant expression. "How can I help you, Sheriff?"

He glanced at me before answering. "We're, uh, here looking for a patient that was brought in by ambulance, probably about… twenty or so minutes ago? She would have been young, a teenager, and she was unconscious with a wound on her hip and—"

"Okay," The desk woman interrupted. "Believe it or not I stay behind the desk for most of the night. I never even see the patients. Does this girl have a name?"

"Kelsey," I said, rapping my knuckles on the desk. "Kelsey Black."

She eyed me before she turned to the computer and tapped away at the keyboard.

"Thanks, Pam, I appreciate it," Sheriff said, even before the lady gave us any information.

"Hmm," The lady said uncertainly. "It looks here like—"

"Sheriff Stilinski?" A woman interrupted. She had black stains all over the front of her blue nursing uniform, and by the looks of it she was headed for the doors. Her coat was hung over her arm and she looked… not so good. She hadn't even bothered to change, for what that was worth, and she was just pulling her dark, curly hair free of its pony tail as she approached.

"Melissa," He said, surprised, and spared me a somewhat awkward glance. "I was just dropping her here because her friend was—"

"Kelsey, you said?" Nurse Melissa asked. Her brown eyes looked at me and I saw a sadness reflected there that made me go still. I didn't like the way she was looking at me. Why was she looking at me like that? "I just saw her and I was… I needed to take a break, I… Was she your friend?"

Her clothes were covered in that black crap. That's all I could think about. That, and Kelsey's bill she couldn't afford if Melissa was about to tell me she was in a coma or something stupid like that.

But it was worse than that. Of course it was. I knew it was. But I didn't actually _know_ it, not until she said the words.

"I'm so sorry."

* * *

 _Author's Note: Please leave a **Review!**_

 _Chapter Song: October, by Broken Bells_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note: Finally, Derek is introduced at the end of the chapter! Thank you for the reviews!**_

Chapter 3

I once said that I didn't see myself as a weak girl. But the truth is, I accepted a long time ago that I wasn't healthy. I guess I was speaking to my character when I said it like that, because physically, I've always known that I was at a disadvantage thanks to the tumor in my brain.

I haven't let it slow me down though. Not even when the migraines started. Death is a fact of life, but people aren't supposed to know when they'll die. After the doctors had given me a neat little expiration date, like I was a can of soup or something, I finally allowed myself to start to be selfish.

For years I tried to be as accommodating and unassuming as possible, a direct result of having Ray as my father, but as I grew up I stopped forcing myself to do the right thing and started learning to put myself first because I knew no one else would.

The change wasn't instantaneous. It took years to readjust. I had just found out I was going to die, and I was young, and nothing felt fair anymore. So I changed. Now that I've perfected it I can tell you that every idea, everything I do is first passed through a ruthless and inherently selfish filter of _will this benefit me?_ If the answer is anything short of yes, I won't do it. If I'm destined to have a short life, it'll be a life free of regrets. No one else's desires particularly matter, unless of course, I care for that person. And I don't make a habit of growing attached to anyone.

That being said, when I met Kelsey I knew that she and I weren't going to be friends forever, for obvious reasons. I kept her at an arm's length and did what I wanted, and if what she and I wanted happened to overlap, then great. I never made spirited efforts to endear her to me. I never went out of my way to be a great friend for her. And I never let myself care enough about her to make it difficult to cut her off, if the time ever came that either of us did begin to care much for the other. It would be less painful that way, for everyone involved.

Fortunately, Kelsey seemed perfectly content to share a superficial friendship with me. She seemed to appreciate the fact that I never pestered her for personal details, and being that she had plenty of secrets, the two of us got along fairly well. Still, I knew that it wouldn't last forever.

I just never saw it coming that she might be the one to die first.

"I know this must be a shock. Do you want to talk to someone?" Asked Nurse McCall, sounding somewhat unsure but mostly concerned. There was a certain degree of awkwardness to the situation that suggested she didn't typically go out of her way to comfort friends of her patients quite like this.

Well, that and the fact that as Nurse McCall had dragged me towards the cafeteria she told a fellow nurse she was going to be taking a long break. The way that the older blonde lady in scrubs had looked at me as Nurse McCall led me down the hall, her hand on my shoulder, was telling.

I didn't respond to her question. I was lost in thought, reflecting on the night. What happened? What went wrong? Kelsey had been healthy, relatively speaking. She partied and drank but so did thousands of people, and they don't just… maybe she overdosed. That was one part of the official opinion, anyways.

Nurse McCall had said something about her body acting like it'd been poisoned and something about a heart attack but most of the medical explanations went straight over my head, just like my own diagnosis had done.

Of course they'd found the cuts and the bite on her stomach. They asked me about it, wanted to know if I had known of it, if she had shown it to me. How had she gotten the cuts? What had happened? I told them that she hadn't been interested in coming to the emergency room for the bite, and that neither of us happened to be in positions to be able to afford such an expensive visit anyway.

The cuts were new, though. They happened at a party. I told them about the kids at the party and Sheriff had taken down their description, for whatever little good it would do. McCall and Sheriff both looked sick over the whole thing. I couldn't blame them.

McCall had noted that maybe the price of coming to the emergency room shouldn't have mattered so much. Maybe if we had come Kelsey would still be alive, and even though that might be hard to swallow, maybe I should remember that for next time.

And now she was asking if I wanted to talk to someone. A priest, she suggested, who should return to the chapel on the second floor in the morning. I told her I wasn't religious so she proposed the bereavement counselor on the third floor and I went back to ignoring her.

McCall began to detail what such a counselor did, and how it likely wasn't nearly as invasive or uncomfortable as I was imagining, and my eyes were glued on a man at the coffee bar. He was young. He looked… inordinately happy. It was strange to see someone with such a big smile in the middle of a hospital. How could he be that happy? Doesn't he know this is where people come to die?

But then he turned and I saw a gift basket in his hand, with a bright pink bow on the handle and I stopped moving entirely. Nurse McCall's voice sounded far away and I my mind raced.

"Lainey?" Nurse McCall was worried. She seemed to want to touch me but stopped herself, having recognized that I wasn't one for physical contact. "Lainey, what is it?"

I pried my gaze from the man at the coffee bar and let my eyes trail back to her face. "Her cousin." My voice was shockingly cold and distant considering the circumstances. Tonelessly, I said, "Someone should tell her cousin."

Nurse McCall was back in business-mode. "Why didn't you mention this to the Sheriff?"

"It hadn't occurred to me," I confessed, and borrowed the parting explanation McCall had given the Sheriff as she wheeled me off to the cafeteria, though with considerable more sarcasm than she'd used. "I was in shock."

She appeared properly admonished. "Of course," She acknowledged, shifting in her seat. "Should I contact the Sheriff, then?"

She was standing to do just that so I grabbed her arm to stop her. "There's no need," I told her, and whether it was because I physically stopped her from leaving or because of what I said, Nurse McCall hesitantly sank into her seat again and gave me an impatient look. I gestured to the man at the coffee bar. "That's her husband right there."

"Wha—" Nurse McCall looked to the man at the coffee bar, frowning in confusion and appearing dubious until she caught sight of the gift basket. Her face cleared to a blank state for a second and then was quickly replaced with an expression that was hard for me to decipher. "They're here," she realized. "They're already in the hospital. Her cousin was pregnant."

I looked down at the table. Kelsey had been so excited. Thinking of the pink onesie she had once shown me, not long after learning the news, I wondered if they would ever truly know how she had changed for that baby.

Nurse McCall recognized that this was difficult for me. We both stiffened slightly as the man grabbed two large cups of coffee from the barista and made to leave. He gathered the basket, balancing his armful as he turned away from us and began to walk in the opposite direction towards the farthest doors that led into the lobby.

Catching me totally by surprise, the pretty nurse didn't even try to suggest that I should be the one to tell Kelsey's cousin-in-law the bad news. She simply leapt from her chair to jog after him, hurrying to catch him just as he stepped out the doors.

I watched from my seat. I could still see them through the doors, since they were glass, and I watched Nurse McCall introduce herself. She seemed to make the point to warn him that she may have bad news. He must have jumped to conclusions because he clutched his basket tightly and looked ready to bolt to the nearest elevator, and Nurse McCall had to quickly reassure him it wasn't about his baby.

They paused and their backs were now turned to me. I could see her side-profile, as she touched his arm and gestured to the East wing of the hospital, where the emergency room was. It took a few moments of explanation but soon his shoulders were slumped in shock and he just stood in the hall looking dumb struck and gaping at her.

A couple of times, he shook his head as if to insist that she had made some mistake. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see McCall gesture, then, through the doors to me, where I was watching them in engrossed captivation.

I went still as he looked at me and squinted his eyes. The man leaned forward and then he looked away and shook his head at Nurse McCall. She hesitated and seemed confused. Of course, he wouldn't recognize me.

The one time I'd seen him, Kelsey dragged me by her cousin's house once to drop off something from her uncle (this was before he'd died) and I had seen this man, her cousin's husband, outside tending to the front lawn. Their house wasn't huge or new or even nice but it was well cared for and I remember feeling weird and out of place and strangely voyeuristic as I waited, eagerly, for Kelsey to return so we could leave that place and never go back.

He'd never even noticed me waiting. Since I had started to walk away with my hood up the second that Kelsey bounced back onto the front porch, he had likely only ever seen me from behind. Why would he recognize me now?

It wasn't until they both started to come through the cafeteria doors that I moved. I got up and hurried to the other exit.

"Lainey!" Nurse McCall said over the quiet hum of the cafeteria. "Lainey, hold on!"

xxx

I call it self-preservation. It's what I'm best at. I have no idea how her cousins would react, but I know for a fact they'd not want to hear from _me_. After all, I'm the girl who took Kelsey to the party where she'd done who-knows-what kind of drugs that could very well have been the cause of her death, as far as they're concerned.

I suppose there had always been the option to drag her kicking and screaming to the hospital, but I'm not the kind to force someone into doing something just because it might be the healthiest decision for them.

Trust me, absconding myself from that particular confrontation was the best course of action for everyone involved. Her cousins would see the truth for themselves soon enough, when Nurse McCall took one of them down to positively identify her body. After that it would all be very personal and they wouldn't want me around for the aftermath.

Also, babies generally make me uncomfortable, and I would hate to have to be rude by rejecting an invitation to come meet Kelsey's newest baby cousin.

I guess the truth is, they will forever associate me with Kelsey's death. There is no way to know for sure if they'd blame me directly or if they'd simply be disgustingly understanding and show some extraordinary measure of consideration by asking how _I'm_ doing. At the very least it was likely that her cousin would want to talk to me. None of those scenarios seem particularly beneficial to me.

Especially since I know the truth, and I knew that I could never tell them the real reason she died.

The halls were winding but the hospital had posted enough signs to direct even the most oblivious person. I was ground level, leaving the cafeteria and moving deeper into the hospital and away from the main lobby. It didn't seem prudent to take an elevator up or down a floor, but I couldn't very well turn around, either.

I was just rounding a corner when I caught sight of a sign on the wall that informed me if I carried on the way I was going, I would eventually cross paths with some of the maternity wards. Unnerved, I immediately turned on my heel to set down the nearest hallway that led far, far away.

Big thick, metal doors were now in my path. There was a red line along the floors that seemed to signify a certain requirement of authority in order to progress farther into the hospital.

Without a keycard to permit entry I was forced to turn around. It took another twenty minutes of wandering the maze of hallways before I finally gave up and used a stairwell to escape into the parking garage.

Finally in fresh air, I slowed my agitated pace and took a moment to catch my breath. The sky was black. I looked up and noticed that the moon was nearly full. The side of it was shadowed and it looked almost as though it had been partially thawed by the gloomy night sky.

Shaking myself out of my stupor, I let my mind wander as I walked. It was no doubt close to three in the morning or so. I was wide-awake.

What had gone wrong? How had I not seen the signs sooner? How had she gone so fast? This morning she looked fine. Tired, but fine. I was way worse off than she'd been; I distinctly remember that, my mind conjuring the image of her dancing around my living room like a lunatic.

I winced at the way I'd thrown her on my porch and left her there for ten hours. It was cold out and definitely not appropriate weather to be sitting in without a coat on for so long, but was that really the cause of it?

No, something told me the bite on her hip had everything to do with her death. Whatever bit her—whatever happened last night, that wound had become infected with something and she'd succumbed to its effects. It was the only explanation that made any remote sense.

But what about me? Why didn't I die? _I'm_ the one who has a terminal illness! By all logical reasoning—by Kelsey's own words—I'd been the least likely to survive. At the time she sounded completely ridiculous. Still, even now, even in the face of her death, it sounds impossible.

A werewolf? _Really?_ Those things don't exist! I'd sooner believe that aliens abducted us! But what can I do now? Kelsey's dead, so it's not like I could demand a proper explanation from her.

The answer hit me like a ton of bricks. I actually stopped in my tracks and reeled from the shock of it. Derek! Derek Hale! There's still one person who can tell me what the hell was going on! He could explain what happened last night, when we came to him.

I needed to find Derek. And fast, before I did something astonishingly stupid, like die.

xxx

The scrap of paper that Kelsey had used to scribble Derek's address on was lost to me now. It was probably still in her pocket, where she lay in the morgue. I would have to rely on myself for this.

My memories of last night were fuzzy and distorted, vague at best. The most I could recall was a giant warehouse, dirty windows and high ceilings. That, and glowing red eyes. Well, _that_ , and what Kelsey had said of the place before we left.

I had two things to go on: the warehouse district, and an abandoned railroad depot. How many of those could there be, really? This wasn't exactly a needle-in-the-haystack situation. This was one short trip to the library to make use of the computers and Google. But first, breakfast. I stopped in Minnie's diner to grab a muffin and coffee to go, leaving a nice tip for Antonio who gave me a wink, which I returned with a smirk before I left.

The public library wasn't very big. Right when you walked in, there were two large rooms off to the right. Meetings were held there occasionally, and it cost money to rent them out. Girl scouts and boy scouts would pay to use it, some committees, that sort of thing. For now they were empty, since it was barely half past twelve.

I stopped in the bathroom before I actually stepped into the library. The mirrors were clean and so was the rest of the facility, which I had a feeling was more due to the fact that there weren't many people who even used the library anymore. Most everyone had computers at home these days, and who actually goes to rent books anymore? Certainly no one at noon in the middle of the weekend.

My reflection startled me. My hair was short as ever, but it was also flat. I had dark circles under my eyes because I hadn't slept a wink last night. My mind was too busy thinking about Kelsey, picturing what her cousins must have been going through. It tortured me but I knew that I'd made the right choice in leaving without speaking to either of them. Still, knowing that they were in pain after having a child was… heavy.

It didn't help that I kept thinking of how much Kelsey had gone through in her life, only to have it end before she ever got what she really wanted. I wondered what her ex would do now, if he knew she was dead. Then I wondered what the fuck it mattered.

Needless to say, after I'd gotten home from the hospital I went stir-crazy and left the house immediately. Kelsey's jacket was still in my living room, so I had it with me and planned to take it by The Beacon later, to add to the box. The box is full of clothes that kids have outgrown or donations. It started as a lost and found and grew from there. It was grey and thick and made of hardy material and I knew someone would be glad to have her jacket.

The last time I'd been to the library, it was for a project in elementary school. It hadn't changed a bit, which was somewhat disturbing. Between the entry where the two meeting rooms were, and the real doors that led to the entrance of the library, stood a glass display that housed a stuffed falcon, posed in mid-flight. I have no freaking idea why it was there, only that it had been there as far back as I could remember and that it was evidently still there to this day. It looked to be a lot dustier than I remembered.

I scoffed and shook my head. "Fuckin' bird," I muttered, heading through the sliding doors that made a loud mechanical whir as I entered.

Once I was inside I stopped to consider what I needed to do and then made my way over to the section where the computers were.

"It's for research," I told the librarian, who was giving me the most skeptical glare I think I've ever had the pleasure of receiving. "For a class."

Her beady eyes narrowed. "What class?"

"History," I smoothly deflected, propping an elbow casually on the counter. "The warehouse district used to be a large source of income for Beacon Hills. Did you know that the old Ironworks factory produced metal that was used to build Riley Bridge?"

She ignored me. "I suppose the school's library is out of commission again?"

"This is an online course," I told her. She was unimpressed, and looked like she was waiting to hear more. Dryly, I added, "It fits best with my schedule."

"Why haven't I seen you in here before?" Her gaze was sharp, as if there were a _wrong_ answer to her question.

I gritted my teeth. "My friend was kind enough to loan me her computer from time to time."

"And apparently that invitation has been revoked?"

What's with the third degree? With a steely glint to my eyes, I kept my tone cool and said, "In a manner of speaking, I suppose. She's dead."

The harsh, judgmental glare dropped from the old crone's face, replaced by shame and something falling dangerously close to pity. She immediately apologized and gestured towards the computers. "If you have any further questions, do not hesitate to ask one of the gentleman behind the counter. Good day."

I watched her turn and leave, her long skirt swishing the carpeted floors, and noticed how she did not bid me to bother _her_ with any problems.

Sighing heavily, I cracked my knuckles and tucked into a thorough Google search. It wasn't as easy as I might have guessed. I tried searching for factories in Beacon Hills, and was given a number of job opportunities in the industrial services. Refining the search for warehouses yielded much of the same.

It took a lot of guesswork and tweaking, but finally I narrowed it down to search for Beacon Hills and railroad depot, and found a website that described Beacon Hills' role in the Industrial Revolution, including a brief allusion to a failed attempt at integrating a railway system.

After another quarter of an hour of searching, I called it quits. An hour and fifteen minutes of clicking around on a computer and all I had to show was an extensive and useless knowledge about the old warehouses that were in the city. Few of them were still operational; many of them were either abandoned or repurposed as apartment buildings.

Frequently, the men behind the counters nearby had given me suspicious glares. It seemed that my appearance was less than reassuring. When my father goes somewhere he always looks like he's up to no good, though he can talk himself out of nearly any situation if he needs to, and I knew I'd inherited that from him. It makes people uncomfortable.

Then there were my many layers of clothes, and I knew I looked every bit as homeless as I sometimes pretended to be, electing to spend the night at The Beacon instead of returning home to Ray's outrageous house parties.

I was just about to close the window and turn the computer off when a thought struck me. Hesitating only momentarily, I drew up a new search. My finger hovered over the keyboard before finally nudging the search button.

My eyes were accosted with pictures of beastly creatures that were covered in grey fur and had huge, hulking muscles. Often bipedal and therianthropic, werewolves were described in numerous forms, the most disturbing of which included Peter Stumpp. Peter Stumpp was a farmer from Germany who was a cannibal and from what I could tell he was perfectly human, but being that his crimes occurred in the thick of the witch trials, they were sensationalized beyond the point of reality.

I was about to back out and search for a more believable article when the screen cut to black. Alarmed, I clicked at the mouse and tapped the keyboard uselessly.

"Excuse me?" I called to one of the men behind the counter. For a long moment they both ignored me. "Uh, _gentle_ men? Help over here?" Right as I was about to get angry, the one farthest from me looked up.

"Yes?" He asked, as though I was being inconsiderate somehow and he had to strain to retain a polite tone. Do this place require a superiority complex on their resumes?

Swallowing my distaste and with a feat of great composure, I said, "My computer just shut off. Why?"

He glanced at the man next to him who had his face turned away from me and when he looked back he seemed to be suppressing a smirk. "It's policy," He explained. "You get an hour and a half of free use on Saturday. That is our busiest day." The silence around us seemed to grow in volume, emphasizing the fact that the library was virtually empty besides one other old man who had taken up residence on an armchair near a bookcase. I was the only one using the computers.

The man behind the desk offered me a fake, tight smile. "If you'd like, it's only five dollars for a library pass. That would grant you unlimited use."

I don't know how, but somehow I managed not to shout. "It's not like anyone is waiting to use the computer," I pointed out through clenched teeth.

The man who had been silent up to then lifted his head and now they were both watching like I'd somehow insulted them. "It's policy, ma'am," He finally interjected, as though that should have been obvious. What he added next was, "We do apologize for any inconvenience." What it sounded like was _Eat shit and die._

I had just about reached my quota for unjustified hostility, and inwardly understood that I had really just been browsing anyways. Truthfully, I probably would have left in about another twenty minutes, but I hate being forced into things. I gathered my jacket and bag without another word, and made a point not to look at them as I left, my chin lifted as I did my best Lucius Malfoy impression I could muster.

xxx

When I got home, the house was a wreck. Drawers had been overturned and emptied, everything that wasn't nailed down was flung across the floors and the furniture. I heard banging down the hall.

"Back so soon?" I yelled, knowing instantly there was only one person who would make such a mess since it wasn't the first time. "What happened to _see you next Friday_ , Ray?"

I found him in my bedroom. My dresser was emptied, my mattress torn from its frame and the blankets strewn across the floor. Ray had one of my pillows in his hands and he pinched the end of the pillowcase and shook the pillow out. I launched across the mess to snatch the fabric from his fingers, which he let go with a fling of his hand to push me away, his face livid.

"What did you do with it?" He manically asked, frantic accusation sharp in his bloodshot eyes. "What the fuck did you do with it!?"

"With what? Fuck's sake!" I took in the disastrous state of my room again and Ray threw a hand up.

"My stash!" He shouted, thrusting his hand in his long hair. "Where are my pills, Lainey!?"

"You told me to get rid of them!"

"Which means to _hide_ them!"

"You said flush them!"

He gasped loudly and grabbed my shoulders, giving me a rough shake. "Did you flush them!? Lainey, did you flush those pills?"

It was the most emotional Ray was capable of getting. He mad but he was close to tears because the very idea that I'd done such a thing upset him that much, and I pushed him off of me with surprising ease. It spoke to how weak he must have been and he tripped over the mattress and landed with a loud crash on the floor of my bedroom, yelping when he hit his head.

"No, I didn't _flush_ your god damn pills!" I screamed, hurt because he didn't care to ask me how I was, and hurt because Kelsey had died, and hurt because he grabbed my shoulder that was injured and—then I stopped before the next words I was prepared to scream could cross my lips because my shoulder _didn't_ hurt.

I hurried to tear my jacket off and Ray continued yammering about the importance of the pills as he struggled to get on his feet. He stood and saw as I yanked my sleeve down and gaped at my perfectly smooth, healed shoulder. "What the fuck are you doing? Where are my pills? What'd you do with them?"

"My shoulder!" I exclaimed. "It's… fine!"

"Lainey!" He bellowed, grabbing me again. " _Where_ are my pills?"

"I took them!" I yelled back, shoving him off again, though this time he just stumbled back towards the door.

"You _what_?" He exploded, and he looked so panicked that for half a second I thought he was worried for me, and then he rushed forward and said, "What the hell is wrong with you? Lainey, that was dilaudid! That was my _best_ stash! I was saving them!"

"They killed my friend!" I suddenly burst, causing him to step back in shock. It wasn't completely true but I wanted to see how he'd react.

He blinked and reeled from the news. He actually looked sad, and his voice was quieter as he said, "You gave them to your friend?"

I paused, looking at him, like he was hurt, like my actions had… troubled him, maybe. It was hard to identify because it was such an unusual reaction from him.

"Lainey, those were _mine!_ " He whined, and I realized I'd read the whole thing wrong. Again. Fed up, I pushed him out of the way and he followed me into the hall, talking the whole way. "I can't believe you'd be so selfish, Lainey. Do you know how hard it is to find good dilaudid? I've had a really bad couple of days! Those stupid cops came to the bar the other night… when was that?" He wondered, thinking for a moment.

"Last night?" I muttered, ignoring him and numb to his typical behavior. He continued to shadow me through the house as I gathered my things, babbling at me. I grabbed my bag and filled it with clothes. I didn't even bother to clean the house, instead stepping over things and shoving them out of the way to get to what I needed. He watched me pack a bag with clothes and my charger and it wasn't until I grabbed my toothbrush that he asked what I was doing. "What's it look like?"

He looked me over. "Are you leaving?"

His tone was chiefly curious, though I'm not sure why I expected anything else. "No," I said, drily, "I'm putting together a care package for the guy in the alley. Thought he might wear my size shirt." I waved the tiny crop top around before stuffing it back into my bag.

A homeless man liked to stay in the alley behind our house, and he'd occasionally go through our trash from time to time. Ray frowned. "What?"

I rolled my eyes and pushed around him again. "I need to get out of here for a while, Ray, I can't be here right now."

"Why?" He asked, following me into the kitchen.

The fridge was still empty. The pizza box hadn't been thrown out. When I opened it, I cringed and flinched at the smell, but was surprised to see that it was empty. Ray looked bewildered when I grabbed it and tossed it on the counter. "Take out the trash, Ray, this place is a pigsty."

"Hey, who's going to pay me back for those pills? Those were expensive!"

"You're broke, Ray," I pointed out, implying that he didn't pay for them anyways.

"I know that, Lainey! God, way to kick a guy while he's down!"

I rolled my eyes.

"How old was your friend? The—the one you said died? Was she married? Did she have a life insurance policy?"

I knew Ray was trying to think of ways to scam his way into money that didn't belong to him, and I sent him a scathing glare as I left the empty kitchen and resolved to get something from the diner. Though I knew the answer before I even asked, I said, "You got any change on you?"

Ray frowned again. "No, why, do you?"

I rolled my eyes. "No."

"What use are you, then?" He meanly asked.

"Don't worry, I'm on my way out."

"Yeah, if you see the cops, tell'em I'm dead." He found an old pack of my cigarettes in the mess he'd made in the living room and plucked one out, already turning away as I headed out of the house.

I snorted at the thought of telling the cops Ray was dead, and called after him. "Like they'd believe that. You're like a cockroach, Ray!" The door slammed shut behind me.

xxx

I first noticed it when I was in the middle of Minnie's Diner. I was ravenous, being that I hadn't had a proper meal since before Kelsey and I took those pills, and spent all but three of the dollars I had in my pocket to invest in a good, hot mega-omelet. My waitress had even thrown in a side of leftover pie from the night before that they'd been about to throw out.

Sundays are definitely busy days for a diner. And since it was close to two in the afternoon, a lot of people were still wearing their Sunday best. That's why when one of the customers stood up from their booth and got directly in the path of a passing waiter carrying an armload of orders, the table of a family straight out of the nearest Baptist church was not too happy to be covered in syrup and Tabasco sauce.

"Are you fucking kidding me!? Can you get any more stupider?" Yelled the man at the table, completely ignoring all the apologies that spewed from the waiter. Mentally, I corrected his grammar. The customer who'd been the cause of the collision shrugged and walked away and I watched as the waiter was left to bear the brunt of the consequences. "You fucking asshole, you owe us an apology—"

I turned back to my omelet, scratching at the side of my face. And it hit me. That waiter dropped five plates onto a laminate table top covered in four separate meals, which had been so loud that it sounded like a dumpster being emptied. And the man at the table still hadn't stopped yelling—he was asking for the manager now.

It's amazing because my head didn't hurt. I braced for the throb that usually follows things like this, pushed my food away to anticipate doubling over at the noise as the man began to pick up his plates and throw them down on the ground to break them when he got carried away, yelling something about undercooked, cold food and shitty service.

Something was happening to me. I was changing; physically, I was not the same as I was a day ago.

xxx

I'm sure it actually happened much less dramatically than I am about to tell you. I'm sure if I were anyone else, things would have gone much smoother. But if it hasn't been made totally clear yet, my resting state is cranky and annoyed.

It's not the most unusual thing to see a grown man at The Beacon. He looked to be in his early twenties, clean and dark haired, neat clothes. I noticed immediately how he was watching me. I wish I could say I handled the situation better.

I'm not a bleeding heart, okay? I'm not the kind of girl to be moved by sob stories. It's just that his is particularly tragic. I guess I wasn't so sympathetic at first.

Every night, The Beacon is packed by the time night falls outside. The problem, as you might have guessed, is that there are more people looking for beds than there are beds available. As a homeless shelter, it's hard to keep things fair. This is solved by a simple 'luck of the draw' type of selection.

Remember those cards I was playing with the last time I was here? They serve a greater purpose than poker. Everyone draws a card. The volunteer in charge that night also draws cards from a separate deck. He calls out the cards he drew, and those with matching cards have just won themselves a bed for the night. The drawing keeps going until they run out of beds.

The night had drawn to a close. I'm normally pretty good about keeping to myself. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. I have no idea what it was, but everything was magnified. I could hear and smell everything.

I could smell the rotted scraps in the trash cans in the corner of the room, I could smell the coffee in someone's cup three tables over, I could smell the weed in the man's pocket next to me. I could hear the rattle of phlegm in his chest as he breathed, too, and I could hear the sound of someone washing their hands in the bathroom across the building.

I was starting to get scared. Everyone was acting normal. How could everyone be acting so normal? Kelsey _died_. My headaches had vanished, and I suddenly had superpowers, and not once tonight have I felt an urge to chug a bottle of alcohol or take out my pill bottle and dump the whole thing into my mouth.

I felt sick. I was _always_ hungry, even after the large omelet I consumed at Minnie's. My hands shook with inexplicable energy, like I'd just finished chugging three energy drinks in a row, and I couldn't ignore the feeling of eyes stuck to the side of my head. Fed up, I turned in my seat and glared back at the man who was watching me.

He sat with his back to the corner, far on the other side of the room with his arms crossed, leaning back in his seat with his card lying face up on the table. Everyone around him looked like they needed a shower. Everyone around him had their shoulders hunched up or hugged their arms to themselves or they were so high out of their mind that they barely paid attention to what was going on. Not him. He stared dead at me.

There were two other people at his table, one girl and another guy who was slumped over and passed out on the table. I doubted anyone would bother waking him to kick him out. That's not really the way things are done around here.

Most people have enough respect to leave when they don't get a card drawn. He had probably been so high that he passed out. That wasn't anyone else's business. When morning came, if he was still there and he didn't wake up, the cops would be called. It's happened before.

I watched the girl tap the strange man on the arm, could hear their conversation even from all the way over here. "Hey, nice," She commented, gesturing down at his card.

The man didn't respond immediately. He looked away from me for the first time and blinked at her, suddenly altogether standoffish and giving her a confused look. "What?" He asked, his voice quiet.

The girl picked up on his aloof attitude but apparently decided to politely ignore it. "Your card," She explained. "You get a bed tonight. That's lucky, man. Looks like I'll be sleeping in the park again. But oh well. At least it's not supposed to snow, right?" A half-hearted, wheezing laugh left her lips, and the man was watching her with a funny expression.

Then, silently, he slid his card across the table to her. She was so shocked she stopped laughing, her smile faltering. She looked down at his card with a suddenly weary face.

"No, dude…" She started. "That's all right, man, it's yours; you keep it."

He frowned deeply. "You don't want it?"

"Come on… that's not what I mean, man. Of course I want it—"

"Then take it," He insisted. He cocked an eyebrow when she continued to eye him skeptically, making no move to take the card. "I've got somewhere else I can go."

She hesitated for only a moment longer. "Yeah?"

"Yes. It's in the warehouse district so at least I'll be inside—"

I was out of my seat and halfway to the door. I heard him stop talking the second I stood up and felt his eyes following me, and I started to run.

Murmurs followed me out but I didn't slow even when I burst out of the door and into the night. After that I started running. Clouds covered the moon and the street lamps were busted as usual but none of that mattered. I could still see everything plain as day. It was like my eyes instantly adjusted to the dark and I could everything around me like I'd been sitting out here for an hour or more.

I dodged the mailbox and newspaper stand in the middle of the sidewalk and sprinted towards the street. The Beacon was in the middle of downtown Beacon Hills. Soon enough I'd pass clubs and bars and banks where people would go to draw money from the ATMs to head over to the strip clubs.

The nightlife was in full swing. All the soccer moms and reputable citizens were tucked in for the night, leaving the desperate and the bold to roam the city in search of thrills.

I only slowed after I ran six blocks away and found myself stopping to pant outside of a veterinarian's office. I could hear the animals moving around inside, the dogs that were restless and howling with separation anxiety or perhaps pain.

It was haunting, the sound of them howling together. I frowned and stepped towards the building.

I heard him before I saw him. He moved with silent grace, stepping deliberately out of the shadows, and I wasn't even surprised to see it was the man from The Beacon who came from the alley beside the vet's office.

His hands were at his side and I could see now that he was quite tall. My pants were interrupted by my loud, laborious sigh of exasperation, and I bent to my knees and willed the ground to stop spinning. I'd overexerted myself, apparently. But strangely, I still felt like I could run another ten miles before I passed out.

My heart pounded so heavily in my chest that it was a miracle I wasn't going into cardiac arrest. He said something but I didn't catch it the first time. I puffed out another breath and forced myself to stand up straight, clutching at my side.

"You're…. you're Derek Hale, right?" I breathlessly guessed, and he frowned at me.

For a long moment he didn't respond. Then, he said, "Why did you run?"

I frowned back. "You were tracking me." It was true, I realized as I said. It hadn't felt like some guy who was a little too interested in me. It felt like he was a wolf watching a rabbit before he attacked; some deeper instinct is inside me now that didn't exist before and it had been urging me to go to him all night and that completely conflicted with all logic. When I heard him tell that girl he planned to stay in the warehouse district, I knew.

"I wanted to talk to you," He explained, and I raised my eyebrows at him. He looked around. "Where's Kelsey?"

I flinched, and he noticed. I quickly covered it up, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin. "You think I don't have questions?"

I expected this to confuse him, but surprisingly, it didn't. "I would be disappointed if you didn't."

"Hmph," I shortly hummed, crossing my arms, as my breath started to come a little easier after my spontaneous run across town. "What happened that night?"

He seemed surprised. A strange mixture of shock and apprehension crossed his handsome features, and he came a little closer to me. I backed away to keep distance between us but he just kept coming, responding as he came closer. "You mean you don't remember?"

"Clearly," I snapped, irritated. "Did you bite me?"

"Clearly," He cut back without missing a beat. But something about the way he was looking at me made it feel like we were talking about two different things. Strange, since we were agreeing, but it still felt like we were arguing.

I've been pretending like all of this is normal. I've been pretending like my body hadn't changed, like my senses hadn't sharpened enough for me to hear the steady rhythm of his breathing and the tires of the cars that drove on the busy street one block over.

I've been pretending that I knew him; that I was expecting him since he was acting like we'd agreed to meet up or something; that I knew exactly what happened to Kelsey and myself and none of this was as completely crazy as it actually was.

I just couldn't trust him. Not yet.

He noticed my prolonged silence, and picked up more than I was comfortable with at whatever he saw on my face. "What? No more questions?"

I clenched my jaw and felt something close to rage inside of me when what looked like a smirk flashed across his lips very briefly before he masked it in its natural, stoic frown and crossed his arms at me again to listen to my question. "Yeah, just one. Are you always such an asshole?"

He was cross now. " _Where_ is Kelsey?" He asked, and took a menacing step towards me.

With no histrionics, I flatly said, "Dead."

It was hard to identify the expression on his face, but if I was forced to pick a word, I guess I'd say scared, though there was an overlying sense of regret that I felt from him. For a long moment neither of us moved.

He looked away. "I'm sorry," He admitted, sounding genuine. "Sometimes people reject the bite. That's never what I wanted to happen."

"It's not what anyone _wanted_ ," I ground out, incensed. "But thanks, your excuse really means the world. What the fuck did you do to her?"

"I—" He stopped himself and looked away again, aggravated at my clear rejection of his apology, though he seemed to accept the accusation for what it was. "She asked me to. You both asked me to!"

"To what? Kill her?"

It was cruel; I knew that. I didn't know exactly what happened or what was going on, but I at least knew that.

"She knew the risks!" He insisted. "She always knew there was that chance!"

Well, that, at least, sounded close enough to the truth. I could definitely see Kelsey wanting to take a risk like that. She was impulsive, and I thought of the _plan_ she told me about. She never went into detail but she always kept a sort of mystery about the whole thing, like she was a treasure hunter or something ridiculous like that. Or, I guess, like she had planned to let some guy bite her because she believed he was a werewolf.

"Two girls show up and ask you to bite them and you just say _sure, but by the way, it might kill you?"_

"Don't you do drugs on a regular basis?" He countered, crossing his arms at me. "How easy would it have been to overdose on those? And I bet the people you get them from didn't have the decency to warn you first."

I scoffed at the comparison and wanted to deny it, to tell him he was an idiot, but I couldn't. Because he was right. I glared at him. "All right, so you're a _decent_ asshole." His eyes flashed, but I ignored him. "But explain this: I'm the one who was sick. I was way weaker than her, way more vulnerable. So if you bit both of us how come I lived and she didn't?"

"It doesn't work like that," He said through his teeth, his patience apparently wearing thin.

"Then how does it work?"

"It just—" He broke off. "It just didn't work for her! Her body attacked the virus!"

"So it is a virus?" I asked, taking a step back. "Like fucking rabies?"

"No! I don't—look, it's not like that, not exactly. But I don't know why she rejected it, okay?" He appeared to be sincerely upset by the news. And when he started to actually back away, to retreat, I found myself following after him.

"Oh, no you don't!" I yelled. "You don't get to just walk away now! We're not done here!"

"I know that," He retorted, and gestured impatiently down an alley. "Do you really want to continue this conversation in the middle of the street?"

"What's the matter?" I indicated the fact that the streets were empty and it was the middle of the night. "Worried that someone might overhear?"

"Would you just come on?" He gestured down the alley again. "I'll explain everything, but we shouldn't be exposed out here like this."

He wanted me to come with him? I scoffed and shook my head. I'm not an idiot. "Look, no offense, but fuck you."

He threw his hands up and turned away, exasperated, and I continued.

"If you think I'm going to let you drag me back to your lair, you're fucking crazy!"

He set his jaw and crossed his arms stubbornly, and spoke like he was talking to someone who was too stupid to comprehend what he was saying. "I'm not telling you anything else out here in the open. This?" He said, gesturing from himself to me. "Us? It's a secret. No one can know. No one."

"Obviously," I snapped, my hands clenching to fists at being treated like an incompetent fool. "But I'm not going to go somewhere with you alone."

"We're alone now," He reminded me, and a strange shock went through me at the notice. I took a step back. He advanced and his eyes flashed red, and my heart picked up speed. He drew even closer, his face looming over me. "Your friends are gone. No one is going to come for you, whether we talk here where we're both vulnerable, or somewhere that I think is secure."

"What is the big deal?" My voice was way more cool and collected than I actually was, and he knew it. I just couldn't understand why he was acting so paranoid. "Even if someone overhears, they're just going to assume we're fucking delusional—"

He cut me off with a loud snarl, and I started in fright. He had a striking growl, one that chilled my annoyance into quiet alert, and I was more shaken than I cared to admit. I tried not to let my hands tremble or my eyes fall from his when I kept still, some baser instinct urging me not to do anything that would irritate him further.

"It's not a request," He told me. "Walk."

"What?—"

"Walk!"

I stumbled back a step and he advanced with a swinging gate, like he was ready to pummel me to dust, so I scrambled to move away from him. It was as I moved into the alley that I realized he was herding me. I wanted to stop, but I couldn't, and he knew it.

He continued to keep right at my heels, pressing me into a brisk pace. Derek silently led me through downtown and into the warehouse district.


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: Before this chapter starts, I'd like to say that I took some liberties with the design of Derek's train depot. I just think he would have employed a better training regimen than we see in the show. So I expanded the layout a little and let's all assume that (1) Derek wants his betas to be strong, and (2) he would have taken the time to find and set up an adequate place for them to train.**_

It was much as I remembered it. The more I looked, the more details came back to me from the night Kelsey and I were here.

It was darker than it had been that night, that much I'm sure of. The building didn't look nearly as big because there wasn't moonlight to illuminate the huge, cracked windows. There was vegetation growing all along the walls and the whole structure was old and neglected, with weeds threatening to overcome the pavement and dirt a couple inches thick across everything.

The inside was colder than I expected. Derek prodded me down the short steps and it was like we stepped into a massive, dirt-covered cellar. The wind blew outside and with virtually no light to reach us below, it was a wonder I could see the shabby cart that lay in the center of the room at all.

At least close the steps, there was a little light. I found myself reluctant to venture deeper into the shadowy, empty structure that felt eerily reminiscent of a cave dwelling.

I half expected for Derek to attack me and knock me out, and then to wake up later, naked and tied down with saran wrap to a metal operating table in a room covered in plastic tarps with Derek standing over me wearing a rubber apron and boots, cutting my cheek with a scalpel pinched between his glove-covered hands, and he would say _Why'd you do it, Lainey? Why'd you kill Kelsey?_

"Over here." Derek continued past to the farthest side of the building. When he saw me staring at the railroad cart, he circled back. "You lost?"

I shook my head and cleared my thoughts. Finally, I frowned. "Just admiring your bedroom. It _is_ your bedroom, isn't it?" This seemed like the obvious choice in place to sleep, since it likely had the only shelter and protection in the whole space.

Derek gave me a long-suffering glare and then rolled his eyes. "Why? Were you expecting a personal tour?"

To my utter surprise, my cheeks flushed with heat, and I scowled at how he grew coolly smug because of my reaction. He seemed unsurprised, as though he already had me all figured out and had long since decided I would be a scared little girl who found herself in way over her head.

Without even fully realizing my newfound decision to prove him wrong, I squared my shoulders and faced off with him, keeping my voice light as I challenged, "Was that an invitation?"

Derek stared at me, intensely. Like he was watching for something, waiting for something to cross my face. After a moment, his face shifted, and he lifted his chin, apparently realizing something. "That's the first rule: know your own limitations. Don't start something you can't finish."

I just narrowly avoided a physical jaw drop, but I'm sure I expressed the sentiment plainly in the gawk that I gave him. Derek cocked an eyebrow and I wondered if he was always so self-assured. Finally I found my voice and said, "I guess it would help if I knew the game before I learned the rules."

This was my backwards way of trying to guide the conversation back into tamer waters. Derek noticed, and he smirked as he turned away. "Survival isn't a game."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, enough with the dramatic hidden meanings. You dragged me here, we're basically sealed away in a tomb, and we are well and truly alone. So are you going to start explaining?"

Derek gestured for me to follow him. "Over here."

I guess it was surprising to find that he led me to what might have been a living space. There were crates, gathered around a small fire pit. I saw a few lawn chairs and at least one sleeping bag over by the extinguished fire, and I knew that this place had probably already been home to people other than Derek, and that it had been long-since abandoned.

Especially if the outdated designs on the trampled coke cans and cigarette cartons was anything to go by. "I didn't even know they still sold Lucky Strikes," I muttered, and Derek ignored me as he went to seat himself on a tall stack of crates.

His feet didn't even dangle and he leaned forward to place his elbows on his knees. "Tell me everything you know."

I paused. "The… the bite on my shoulder is gone."

He nodded, apparently approving. I went to take a seat at a lawn chair as he explained. "It usually doesn't take longer than forty-eight hours for them to heal. But it's never a guarantee, as Kelsey proved. It's a gift."

"A gift? Oh, give me a break!" I snapped. "That _gift_ killed Kelsey. Next time, try a basket. I hear Costco sells great ones."

"I'll keep that in mind," He said, dryly, looking frustrated. It seemed like he wanted to say something, but somehow knew better. Derek looked away. "The transformation will be complete after your first shift on the full moon. That's in nine days."

"Nine days?" I balked. "What am I gonna do in the mean time?"

"Train," He said, as though it should have been obvious. "This won't come naturally to you. It'll be hard. And you'll probably mess up." He considered me, his eyebrow raising. "A lot."

I scowled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Hale."

He kept his eyebrow raised as his expression shifted when I addressed him by his last name. Derek stood and came towards my chair, circling me. "The first time you shift, it's going to feel like a nightmare. If it wasn't for me—if you were dealing with this by yourself, you probably won't even know if it actually happened or not the next morning. I'll keep you from killing anyone, but I can't promise that you won't get hurt."

" _Kill_ someone—" I stood up and whirled on him. "You've got to be kidding me! I swear to god, Hale, if this is all some sick joke—"

His eyes flashed an unnatural bright red, effectively stunning me into silence. His lip curled in some mixture of annoyance or distaste as he said, "It's not a joke, Lainey. And the sooner you start acting like it, the less likely you're going to completely fail."

I narrowed my eyes. "If I want something, I never fail at getting it. Never."

He scoffed and crossed his arms. "Okay. We'll see."

My fists tightened and I wanted to _make_ him see, but he turned away from me and continued talking, apparently expecting me to follow.

"I want to test you," He told me. "I want to see what I'm dealing with. Have you ever had any formal training?"

"To do what?" I asked.

Derek looked back at me, apparently not expecting that response. He raised his eyebrows. "Anything?"

I narrowed my eyes. After a short pause, I grudgingly admitted, "No."

He smirked, making me want to pick up the nearest chair and hurl it at his head. "That's what I thought. So nothing too… advanced, then. The basics first. Come on."

After I was standing beside him, I started to shrug off my jacket, but was stopped by his hand. I glanced down at where he was touching my shoulder and he frowned at me.

"What are you doing?" He asked, like I was trying to get naked.

"Um… taking my jacket off?"

"Well, stop."

I scrunched my face at him dubiously. " _Okay_. Why?"

"Because it's thirty degrees outside and we're about to start training." Derek walked around me and continued towards a taller set of stairs that apparently led to a separate exit. I followed after him.

"Training? Outside?"

"Do I have to say everything twice in order for you to understand?" He snapped back, shortly. I gritted my teeth and my steps grew heavier.

"What do you mean?" I baited.

"I mean every time I try to explain something you repeat what I say and—" Derek stopped. I kept the satisfied smirk that was begging to be let out off my lips, and he frowned at me thoughtfully for a moment. His glare suddenly fell, leaving him with an uncharacteristically clear expression for half a second. He knew I was provoking him. His eyes were different now, not as irritated, and for a moment I expected him to smirk. He turned away without another word. I recovered and caught up to him, shaking the moment off.

"Outside, really? I mean, what happened to—er, _vulnerability?_ "

"This is different." The door was metal and heavy and gave a rusty groan of protest as he pushed it open and held it open for me. When he looked at me he raised an eyebrow again, and I began to wonder if that was his resting face. "No one will bother us out here."

"But—"

I suddenly stopped protesting when I saw where we were. It might have once been a loading station, but now it was virtually deserted. There were five separate tracks spreading across the ground that led from behind the building and curved off into a thick expanse of trees that I hadn't realized was behind the warehouse.

I didn't even know we were so close to the edge of the woods. It was actually right behind us. I turned around to take a look up at the warehouse and noticed there were tall, metal fences that shielded the road from view. How had I missed all that?

"This is like… an industrial compound. Or a prison exercise yard," I said with a note of sarcasm, and Derek snorted.

"It's called a classification yard, and this one is actually pretty small. They don't usually keep them with depots, though. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it would have been better if it were bigger. The bigger ones are put on steep hills."

I stopped gawking at the yard to give him a horrified look, which he actually seemed amused at. I wanted to smack that smug look off his face, but I just narrowed my eyes as he shrugged at me.

"This will do for now," He said. "You ready?"

I made a show of stretching out my arms and my neck. "You're the one who's giving me a lecture on logistics, or architecture or whatever."

"Start over there," He said, pointing at the farthest end of the yard, over the five tracks. "Run laps along the tracks. Word of advice: avoid the spikes. Keep going until I say stop."

"Okay, but only because you asked so nicely," I muttered, ignoring the unimpressed glare that he sent my way as I started across the yard.

I've never been one for endurance running. I'm more of a sprinting kind of girl; short bursts of energy are more my speed. Still, the first few laps weren't so bad. At first I was secretly glad that Derek stopped me from shedding my jacket due to the biting wind that blew, but as I loped along the tracks I worked up a sweat and the urge to shed the extra layer was strong.

I was about to just that when I noticed that Derek was behind me. He kept with my pace easily and while I was ready to strip down to my starks, he looked _bored_.

"Keep going," He snapped at me, and I glowered at him and pushed myself harder to spite him. To him, the increased speed was nothing and he didn't even seem to notice the change of pace. "Pull your knees higher."

"What?"

"Higher! Your form is working against you. You'll be burnt out in the next ten minutes if you keep on like that."

"Screw off!"

He shrugged. "Suit yourself. But we're just getting started, so you'll regret that."

I turned away and tried to ignore him.

Was it me, or were the tracks getting longer? It felt like they were conspiring against me with Derek and growing so that it took me a little longer to reach the end. I stumbled over one of the rails when I crossed.

The gravel didn't make it any easier, and I nearly lost my footing. Derek's hands were on my shoulders and shoving me to keep me from toppling over. I almost fell from the force of his push but I threw my arms forward and caught myself and Derek yelled at me to get moving.

Gritting my teeth, I started on the next track, pulling my knees a little higher with each step to avoid tripping again. We carried on like this, Derek critiquing my form and pointing out things I was doing wrong, and after another twenty minutes I was covered in sweat, my head was light and my lungs burned too bad to catch my breath.

Derek continued to move effortlessly over all the natural obstacles that the rail yard offered. There was one point I was certain he had to be showing off when we came across one of the rail cars on the tracks, and rather than stepping to the side to run around it, he leapt onto the back and decided to pass through it.

I couldn't help it. With no small amount of mocking in my voice, I yelled out, "Parkour!" When he flipped off the front of it. I laughed at my own joke.

Derek didn't even crack a smile as he rejoined me at my side. "Are you done?"

The smile instantly fell from my face and I scowled at him. He ignored it.

"Keep your elbows in!"

"God damn it!" I exclaimed. "I'm funny! Anyone else would have laughed at that!"

He gave me a withering glare. "Yeah, you're hilarious. Maybe you could just joke your way through the first full moon."

It was extremely difficult not to retort. I swallowed my pride, turned, and continued to run.

Derek picked up the pace behind me, keeping close to my heels to force me to go faster to avoid a collision with him. "Lainey, what did we just go over? Your knees!"

Without comment, I corrected my form, vowing to myself that this would be the first and last time I allowed someone to control me like this.

I wasn't expecting it, but he reached out and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me to a stop. "You know what? Let's start something else. We'll continue this another day."

I almost collapsed against him in relief. "Fine."

He pushed me forward. "Get inside."

"Just… give me a second. One second."

Before I could fully lie down on the ground, Derek had picked me up like dirty laundry and tossed me towards the steps. "You can't stop now," He told me. "You'll never get through the next part."

I could cry. I shook my head sloppily as he marshaled me back across the classification yard and inside the train depot. "I can walk by myself!" I snapped, snatching my elbow out of his grip. Teetering to the side, I almost fell down the steps, and Derek sighed loudly.

"This is how it's always gonna be, isn't it?"

"Shut up!" I brushed myself off and held my chin up, my eyes on the door that led to the street outside "Don't take it personally if I stay far, far away from you for the next few days—"

"Where are you going?" He grabbed me around the arm and hauled me towards the rail cart again. "You're not done yet. Unless you think your reflexes are honed enough to dodge bullets without any training."

"Bullets? Was that threat?" I reared back and put a good bit of distance between us.

Derek rolled his eyes. "No, you idiot. The hunters can't keep up with us physically, so they use weapons."

"That's cheating! Wait— _hunters?_ What hunters?"

He paused to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Oh, my god…"

"Derek!"

Derek took a deep breath. "All right," He relented, and pointed at a lawn chair. "Go, sit. We'll take a short break and I'll explain."

Obediently, I went to sit in a lawn chair and turned back to him with an impatient glare. "Hunters? Really?"

"They're a family that moved here to Beacon Hills. As you might have guessed, not everyone is thrilled with the idea of werewolves living in the city."

"I thought it was a secret," I dryly retorted, and Derek looked back at me, levelly.

"Yeah, well, they know. And they think we're dangerous."

"Aren't we?"

He paused. "We don't have to be."

"But we can be."

Hesitating, he nodded. "If you want to be black and white about it, then yes."

"Anyone ever told you you're bad at explaining things?"

"Maybe if you'd stop interrupting—"

"Maybe if you made sense I wouldn't have to—"

"Lainey!" He exclaimed, his eyes flashing again. "Shut up!"

I scowled and crossed my arms, slouching back in the chair. In my mind, I continued to tell him what I really thought of him, and he took a long breath before he continued.

"The hunters are a family," He told me, and then paused as if he expected me to interject. When I didn't, he continued. "The Argents. The only thing that runs deeper than their hatred for us are their pockets. They're rich, they're well trained, and they've got an ancient code that their family has followed for generations to keep them going. They take it as their personal duty to protect the innocent from us."

Derek was somewhat resigned when I finally spoke, as though he knew it was only a matter of time before I cracked. He listened with stoic courtesy. "You're telling me these assholes are _rich_ and the only thing they do with their lives is hunt supernatural creatures? Is there a lot of money in that? What do they do, kill us and then rob us?"

He paused, appearing thoughtful. "Well, they've tried before."

"Great," I nodded. "That's just great. My dad would love these people. Okay, go on, what else?"

Derek sat back and sighed. "Currently, there are two werewolves in Beacon Hills. Me, and Scott McCall, a high school sophomore."

"They hunt _kids?"_

He raised an eyebrow at me and eyed me critically. "Aren't you sixteen?"

"Seventeen, asshole. Eighteen in two months. But Sean's gotta be—what, fifteen?"

"Who?" Derek frowned.

"The sophomore!"

"You mean Scott."

"Whatever!" I exclaimed. "Hey! Wait a minute! You said there were two werewolves in Beacon Hills."

He raised an eyebrow without commenting.

I threw my hands out. " _Hello?_ What about me?"

"You haven't completed your transformation yet," He dismissed with a shrug.

"Does that mean that I could still reject it?" I asked in growing hysteria. "Are you telling me there's still a chance I could die from this?"

Derek stared at me. "It's highly unlikely."

I stood up, panicked. He rolled his eyes.

" _Relax_. I'm not going to let you die."

"What can you do about it!?" I exclaimed. "You can't stop it!"

"But I can teach you control." He stood up and approached me. "Lainey, up to now, you've been treating this like it's a chore. Like this is all something you have to hurry up and get done so you can go back to life as it was before. You can't. It's not. Your life will never be the same. You need to accept that."

Quietly, I kept my eyes on my shoes, my fists tight at my sides.

"But you're not alone," He reminded me.

I looked up at him, guardedly. Derek stepped forward.

"I am sorry about Kelsey, Lainey. I know how bad she wanted this. She knew that it could change everything for her. I believe that she really wanted to change her life, to better herself, and this would have done that for her. She died and that's not fair. And neither of us expected to be stuck with each other. But this is it. This is your second chance. Don't let it pass you by."

I didn't expect him to be so convincing. I didn't expect _any_ of this. I crossed my arms and turned away. This was never something I thought I'd want. "What about you?" I asked. "What do _you_ get from all of this?"

"I'll get a beta," He simply said.

I mentally shook myself off and turned back with all traces of exposure vanished from my face. "So what, that whole alpha and omega crap is actually true?"

He nodded in confirmation. "Alpha, beta and omega. The alpha is the leader. That's me. You're a beta."

"And the omega?"

"Lone wolf," He explained. "They don't belong to packs at all. They're weaker because of it."

"Let me guess," I said, tilting my head knowingly. "The alpha is the strongest."

He smirked. "The bigger the pack, the stronger the alpha."

I snorted and rolled my eyes. "So you're probably gonna want a couple more betas, then, huh?"

Derek turned away and led me through the cart, which I noticed did in fact still have uncomfortable looking seats that could serve as a place to sleep. "First thing's first," He said. "I want to test you a little more."

We came out the other side of the cart and I saw a large obstacle course. For a moment, I stopped dead in my tracks to just stare. Faltering, I couldn't ignore how sore and tired I still was from the run we just did, and couldn't imagine attempting the labyrinth of crates, barrels and makeshift walls he'd set up.

"Lainey, keep up," Derek barked, and I jumped at the unexpected noise. He was standing over to the side, just on the outer edge of the obstacle course. I realized that beside him hung two large, black punching bags. He smacked one. "Let's go."

Though I was relieved that he wasn't making me attempt the obstacle course, it turned out that the punching bags were a lot more complicated than one would have thought.

I could hit the bags with enough force to send them swaying. I don't want to brag, but that thing probably weighed over a hundred pounds, and to hit it with enough force for it to dangle like a tassel was no small feat. If I had any doubt about being supernatural, it was quickly disappearing. Derek, unsurprisingly, did not approve.

"What, was that not enough force?" I snapped.

"Too much!" He retorted, and grabbed my fist before I could land another blow. "You're going to bust the bag, and I'll be very, _very_ unhappy."

His voice was low and he stood close enough that I could feel the way his muscles were coiled like he was anticipating anything—even if that meant me defiantly attacking the bag just to spite him.

Derek stepped back. "If you were actually punching someone you would have shattered their bone into splintered fragments."

My face lit up, and Derek discouragingly continued.

"It's not a good thing. Unless you're fighting for your life, that's way too much force. Obviously every situation is different, but you need to punch with about half of the power you're using."

I punched again, significantly weaker this time.

"Softer. Softer! Okay. Like that." He nodded and watched me closely for a while, the sounds of my fists clipping the bag the only noise between us. "That's enough for today."

Derek stepped away and I dropped my hands back to my side.

"You're not weak," He told me, crossing the room to head back to the cart. "But you're sloppy. You landed hits all over that bag. Were you even trying to focus on one spot?"

My back stiffened. "I didn't know this was target practice."

"And you move way too slow. You wouldn't last a second in a fight with someone who was actually trained."

"Oh yeah?" It was stupid. I knew it was, even as I did it, but there was something about the way Derek treated me that made me want to prove myself. I crossed the floor and leapt up, hooking my arm around his neck from behind, and dragged him down into a headlock.

It happened so fast I barely had time to gasp. Derek grabbed my arm hooked over his neck at the wrist and elbow and shoved my elbow up as he ducked down. It immediately broke the headlock and he yanked my wrist down and turned us around so that he had my arm twisted behind my back.

Because of the way he'd broken the headlock, because of the way his hands were placed on my arms when he did it, it ended up that I was bent over with Derek's arms twisted through mine and his legs and hips pressed against me, and under different circumstances the position would feel extremely suggestive.

He lifted my elbow up and I cried out when it almost snapped my arm in half. Derek's breath ran across the top of my back and neck. "Are you always this thoughtless?"

I growled and thrashed against him, my face hot and my voice was strained and breathless when I said, "Do you always take everything so seriously?"

"Only when someone puts me in a headlock," He snapped back, and then untangled our arms and shoved me away.

I stumbled forward and almost lost my footing, but managed to catch myself at the last second. When I was standing upright again, I brushed my hair back and huffed loudly. Derek was watching me wearily, his hands in fists at his side as if he was waiting for me to charge him again. His eyes bored into me and I paced back and forth restlessly, trembling slightly with adrenaline.

I opened my mouth but before I could speak, Derek interrupted me. "Get out," He said, and I froze.

"What?"

Derek turned away and started back towards the cart. "The sun is rising," He said, and I realized he was right as I looked up and saw a hint of daylight streaming in through the windows. "You should go. Sleep. Rest. Come back tonight and we'll start training for real. And eat something; you're way too skinny."

Self-consciously, I touched my stomach and frowned, following him into the cart. "So that's it?"

Derek stopped from where he'd been moving towards one of the seats and raised his eyebrow at me. "Yeah," He bluntly stated. "That's it. Go home, Lainey. I can't train you if you're exhausted."

He sat down on a seat and put his head back, closing his eyes. After a moment I said, "Fine."

He didn't say anything else as I left.

* * *

 _ **Please, please, please, REVIEW!**_


	5. Chapter 5

"Here's your cheeseburger, Lainey," Smiled the waitress as she set a huge platter down. "The potato wedges were just baked so they're gonna be pretty hot. Did you say you wanted some ketchup?"

Being that I'd already shoved half the cheeseburger into my face, I simply gestured an affirmative and she snorted as she took a bottle of ketchup from one of the deeper pockets in her apron and placed it beside my water. "Slow down, no one is going to try and steal it from you."

With great reluctance, I forced myself to finish chewing before I took the next bite, which I made sure wasn't quite as large as the first one. The waitress leaned against the side of my booth, her dark arm close to my shoulder.

"Heard the cops almost caught Ray at Side Pot the other night. I can't believe he always gets away."

"Not always," I darkly muttered, and she paused to look at me appraisingly. Her neat dreadlocks were pulled back into an up-do and the stud in her nose twinkled under the light when she helped herself to the seat across from me.

Angie used to live in the house across the street from me. Our dads would get together and drink so sometimes she came over while Ray hosted a party and we would sneak beers and watch horror movies in my room. She moved out a few years ago, and now she and her three kids live with her girlfriend at her girlfriend's folks' house.

"That's right," She recalled, speaking of Ray again. "He spent some time in lock up a while back, didn't he?"

"Just about a week, but then he broke probation and went back for another month."

"That's it?" She asked, surprised.

I shrugged. "Too crammed, or something. They release the non-violent offenders if they don't cause trouble while they're there."

"Hmph. And now?"

"Now there's another warrant out for him, I guess."

She shook her head. "That man, I swear. You best be careful. They might try to use you against him. You know, they paid Katie to take a trip and stay in a casino resort with her cousin so she could try and trick him to confess about murdering his ex. She wore a wire and everything. Just like the freaking movies..."

I slapped her hand away when she reached for a potato wedge. Angie giggled and retreated. "A casino resort?" I wryly wondered. "Sounds swanky. I bet I could trick him into a confession."

Angie furiously shook her head. "No, girl. It didn't work and Katie got fired from her job for missing four days in a row. Now she scrubs toilets at the high school. _And_ her cousin found out about it and trashed her van."

"Damn," I frowned. Angie nodded. "What the fuck is wrong with people?"

"Angie!" Yelled a man that must have been her manager, and he didn't look too happy as he gestured angrily at her. "Are you fucking kidding me? What are you doing?"

"I'm on break, Noah!" She yelled back.

"It's those piece of shit kids of yours! They're spray-painting the dumpsters again! If you don't get back here and handle that shit I'm callin' the police for real this time, and you can find another restaurant that don't care if it's covered in blue dicks!" And with that, the man turned to burst back through the door into the kitchens.

Angie sighed loudly and turned back to give me an apologetic grimace. "Sorry," She said. "I gotta go."

I eyed the door to the kitchen and said, "Katie's cousin just gave me an idea. What kind of car does that prick drive?"

"Elaine Campbell," She scolded, using my full name like she was my mother. "He's my _boss_."

"So?" I raised an eyebrow.

Angie paused before she said, "Noah takes the bus," And I thought she might have been lying.

I shrugged a shoulder. "Noah, huh?" She pretended not to notice my knowing look. "Uh huh. Too bad. Thought maybe he'd find your kids gave his car a new paint job."

She rolled her eyes but smirked. "Stay safe, Lainey. I heard about Kelsey. That shit's fucked up."

I nodded and looked down, and she patted my shoulder.

After Angie disappeared into the kitchen I turned around in my booth and glared at Derek. "What are you doing here?" I snapped, my temperature scalding hot. "Were you listening to all that?"

I had known the moment he came to sit behind me. It was just after Angie took the seat in front of me. Not only had I heard him approach and take a seat, but I noticed the way her brown gaze flickered to him and annoyance flashed across her face for the briefest of moments before she dutifully pretended not to notice him so she could chat with me.

"Who's Ray?"

I rolled my eyes and turned away. The cheeseburger wasn't as hot as it had been. The patty was too salty and the pickles didn't help matters. When Derek slid into the seat that Angie had just vacated, I pulled the bun off the top, picked off the pickles, and flicked one at him.

He sighed loudly and pinched the pickle between his fingers. "Mature," He sourly noted, dropping the offending condiment right into my water.

I scoffed loudly and couldn't fight a grin. "Mature!" I retorted.

Derek looked satisfied and a smirk played at his lips for a fleeting second before he narrowed his eyes. "Who's Ray?"

My grin vanished. Derek was so big; it felt like he took up the whole booth. I tried and failed to think of a polite way to ask him to leave that didn't end up with being punished one way or another. I bit into a potato wedge to save myself from answering. When I took a drink of my pickle-water, Derek wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"I guess I shouldn't have worried about you starving."

I rolled my eyes. With a mouth full of food, I said, "First I'm too skinny, now I'm fat?" I shook my head. "Make up your mind, man."

"You are too skinny." He crossed his arms. "Is he your boyfriend?"

I choked on a mouthful of cheeseburger and smacked the table. The food in my throat broke apart and I reflexively coughed to try and dislodge it, my eyes watering. Derek frowned as I fought to catch my breath, making a huge show about rocking to the side and gasping through my coughs. "Don't _do_ that!" I wheezed.

"Your dad, then," He deduced, and when I sent him a dirty look his eyebrows raised. "Definitely your dad."

"What the fuck do you care?" I hissed, my voice still weak from choking.

"I don't," He admitted. "But it's good to know who you have in your life."

"Ray isn't in my life," I bitterly spat, shaking my head. "It's more complicated than that."

"Oh?" Derek challenged dubiously. "I somehow doubt that. Either someone makes an effort or they don't. There's not a lot of in between."

"Then you've never had a parent who's an addict. It's really not that simple."

Sympathy flashed across his face and I looked away in exasperation. Angie was standing over near the bar and she caught my eye. Gesturing wildly to Derek, she cupped her mouth and mouthed, " _He's CUTE!_ " as she pointed at him frantically.

My eyes bulged and I immediately turned away and put my hand over that side of my face to block her from view, effectively shutting her out from across the room. Derek looked away from Angie and watched me, his eyes dancing in glee at my discomfort.

"Something the matter?" He teased, and I kicked his shin under the table. Hard. He scowled. I felt a sharp jab of retaliation against my leg and jumped in surprise and pain. Derek didn't even flinch, but I was doubled over my plate and groaning. He looked less annoyed when he said, "Hurry up and eat," all hints of joviality vanishing from him without a trace. "I've got a whole schedule for us tonight and there's no break for snacks."

Working on a hunch, I grabbed another pickle from the discarded pile by my burger and locked eyes with Derek, making a big show of taking a bite from it.

Derek looked physically sick. He averted his gaze and sighed loudly and I smirked in satisfaction as I smacked my lips loudly. "Mmmm," I added, pettily. "Something the matter? Oh, you don't like pickles. See? I can find things out about you too, and I don't even have to stalk you to do it."

He rolled his eyes.

From over his shoulder, I spotted Angie in the corner of the isle shaking her booty from side to side and pointing at Derek to an imaginary beat. She laughed and nodded in approval, throwing a thumbs-up.

I sank lower in my seat and hid behind my cheeseburger as Derek continued to try and guess things about Ray.

xxx

Derek paid for my dinner. I didn't expect it, but then, I didn't have much choice in the matter, either. He slid a twenty at Angie when she came to collect my plate and they somehow decided to team against me. I suspect it was largely due to the fact that the meal itself cost eight dollars and Angie was allowed to keep the rest of Derek's bill, while all I had was a ten.

Nevertheless, it was yet another point in Derek's column of wins. He was leading by a long shot. When did I start keeping score?

I could almost anticipate when he would roll his eyes now. It tended to happen any time I managed to get one over on him in conversation, which was not nearly often enough as far as I'm concerned.

This time, we started exactly as we did last time. He led us straight out to the classification yard and ordered me to start running. I think we might have lapped the whole compound about forty five times.

It's pitch dark out, again, since we started at close to ten o'clock and haven't showed signs of slowing. I was just about out of energy and we hadn't even started the inside portion of training.

"Wait," I gasped, and he stopped beside me. Even _his_ forehead glistened with sweat. "I have to stop."

"No you don't," Derek growled. He took me by the shoulder and pushed me forward a few stumbling steps. "Finish the rest of the laps at a jog."

I resisted the urge to whine. "How many more?"

"Twenty," He grunted. "Go!"

He was already off, setting a much more gradual pace than before. I sighed heavily and followed haltingly after him. I thought it might take us all night to finish.

"Did you not sleep?" He suddenly asked, and I lifted my eyes off of the gravel I'd been intensely staring at to frown at him.

"What?"

"You're exhausted. I told you to sleep."

"I did!"

"For how long?" He demanded.

"Uh—I got up at three o'clock this afternoon."

"When did you go to sleep?"

"As soon as I got home," I said, defensively.

Derek stopped jogging to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You got ten hours of sleep and you're still this tired?"

"What do you want me to say!?" I exclaimed. "I'm not used to working out like this. It's…" I started to admit that I had been through a lot the past few days, but at the last second I thought better of it. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. "It's really not that bad. I'm fine. Come on, twenty more laps."

He caught up to me after a moment. "I haven't slept for eight hours straight in over seven years," He told me.

"Damn, Hale," I scoffed. "That's what Ambien is for. Crush up 10 milligrams of that in some tea, you'll sleep for at _least_ ten hours."

Derek shook his head and wiped at his brow. "Pills don't work for us," he told me, watching as I went quiet and looked away to process this bit of news. "We deal with our shit on our own now, Campbell. You're just gonna have to learn to live with it."

I was shocked on several different levels, because he called me by my last name and I didn't even realize he knew it, because I was just told that pills won't do anything for me ever again, and because he basically just dropped the hard truth on me like no one has in years.

I watched him run past me and continue on the track and into the woods. He flicked his fingers over his shoulder to indicate that I should follow him. After only a brief second's of hesitation, I tucked in and followed him into the dark woods.

It was cool out and this time I'd come prepared to run outside. I wore some old leggings and a crewneck sweatshirt that I didn't even know I owned until I dug through the mess that Ray had left in my room days ago. It was green and it said Florida on it, and since I'd never been to Florida, I knew for a fact it didn't belong to me. Still, it served its purpose.

The tracks, unsurprisingly, didn't reach very far. After about fifteen yards into the woods they stopped and after that there was no path leading us, but Derek seemed to know exactly where he was taking me. We were running up a hill now, and he moved fast, but it was so dark that I knew I needed to keep up with him if I didn't want to get lost.

I could hear the quiet sounds of the forest life all around us. You might have expected it to be creepy, but it wasn't. Owl hoots and little rodents skittering around as we passed; birds flapping from tree branch to tree branch. For the first time I wondered what it might sound like in the city if the train depot had actually succeeded.

Would we hear train whistles in the night? Would they be loud enough to wake us, or would they sound lonesome and faded, and the only time you'd hear them is if you stayed up to catch it as it passed through while no one was around? I decided, then, that I thought I liked trains.

It felt like another half an hour before he stopped. We were at the edge of a cliff. On the horizon, I could see Beacon Hills, the whole city illuminated with lights. I panted and stopped to grab my knees as I caught my breath.

Derek nodded at me. "When we go back you can take a break before we start the next part."

I grunted but couldn't actually form a coherent response.

He turned away and looked down at the city, and for a long moment, neither of us spoke. It was frighteningly close to a companionable silence.

I covered my mouth and winced. "Oh, god," I said. "I'm gonna—"

Derek moved back in surprise when I brushed past him and hurried over to a couple of bushes off to the side. After I was finished getting sick I vowed to myself to never eat pickles to spite Derek ever again. No matter how comical his reactions might be.

He sighed when I came back to him and watched me try and fail to tuck some of my short hair behind my ear. Derek dropped his hands from his hips and shook his head. "You're pathetic," He dryly told me, and I couldn't even be angry.

I smirked. I wasn't embarrassed, since I'd done the same thing in way worse situations at countless parties. Eventually I learned to just be as discreet as possible and even though it was an involuntary reflex, that didn't mean I couldn't aim somewhere deliberately. In this case I thought the bushes were the best targets. Somehow, I thought Derek wanted to keep his shoes. "Got any Altoids?"

He sighed again. "Come on."

xxx

It was time to start the next phase. That's what Derek said, at least. He let me take a five-minute break and he'd even given me some mouthwash he had stashed in a cooler to rinse my mouth out—though I had a feeling that decision would be mutually beneficial to both of us.

With that courtesy taken care of, he told me to sit down for a minute before meeting him at the punching bags. It was hot inside with my sweater on so I'd taken it off. Now donning a plain black tank top, I had decided to dig through the cooler he'd been in while he waited.

To reward my plundering, I found a cache of bottled water. I drained two of them before joining him back at the bags.

He went to stand in front of them and eyed my change in apparel. I resisted the urge to squirm, overcome with the feeling that Derek could see everything and I might as well be naked. His gaze focused on my arms. "Have you ever lifted weights?"

"Wouldn't that be a waste of time for us?"

Derek seemed to find this amusing. "You think I'm trying to waste your time?"

"I don't know," I stubbornly deflected, crossing my arms. "Are you?"

He swallowed what must have been a venomous retort, if the expression on his face was anything to go by. "Your strength can only take you so far. It won't last you forever. It's pure adrenaline. The chemicals in your body are totally different now. You have more power, but you don't have more endurance. That's what all of this is. That's the key to everything for us."

"Alright, alright, I get it. More cardio and cross training."

"It's more than that," He said. "You need skill. You need to learn stealth, and evasion."

God! I threw my hands up. "Anything else, Fist of Fury?"

He smirked at me. "Yeah. Just one more thing."

Derek came over, and without warning, without giving me a chance to dodge, he threw his arm around me and tossed me over his shoulder. Shamefully, I admit that between the yelp and the surprised squealing, I was overcome with the fantasy of seeing him in a pair of baseball pants. I laughed at myself and Derek ignored me, his grip tightening on the back of my legs.

He carried me over to one end of the obstacle course and deposited me right into the start of it, dropping me on my back. "You've got two minutes."

"What?" I sat up and looked around. There was a rather tall, wooden wall, reaching maybe ten feet up or so, and it was completely flat. "Two minutes to what?"

"It's a head start. Because I'll come for you," He told me, and let his eyes flash red as he leaned over the crate between us. "And this time if I catch you, I'll break your arm."

My eyes bulged. "Jesus—"

He threw his head back and roared, and if the ferocity of it hadn't actually taken me aback, I would have laughed at him. "GO!"

It was the first time I'd seen his face fully transformed. It was a fearsome sight, and it made me flinch. I clambered to my feet and looked up at the wall. It was impossibly high. I tried jumping and reaching as high as I could, but my fingertips didn't even come close.

"How am I supposed to climb this!?" I cried, patting all along the surface. There were no edges at all, no pegs or cuts or even dents in the wood. It was completely smooth.

"Think!" Derek yelled behind me. "You're not tall enough to be able to jump and catch the top, and there's nothing to grab on to. So what do you need?"

I frowned. "I don't know! Wings!?"

"Wrong! One minute, thirty seconds!"

"What?! That's not right!"

Derek flicked his finger in the air. "Tick, tock, tick, tock! Come on, Campbell. I know catching you won't be a challenge, but at least give me some motivation!"

I turned around and looked up again, and then looked down at the bottom. Then I backed away from the wall a good distance. I took a deep breath, and sprinted at the wall. I swung my arms forward and leapt up, flung my foot against the wall, and immediately flipped backwards, landing on the floor with a resounding thud.

I lay on the floor with the wind knocked out of me. Where most people might have laughed, Derek was incensed at my failure. He might have seen it as a poor reflection of his coaching skills, I don't know, but he yelled at me. "Get up! Lainey! _Get_ up!"

I took a deep breath. Pushing myself to my feet, I swayed only slightly and shook my head to regain my bearings. Then I crossed the distance between us with a determined, swinging gait. "You know what, Hale? Fuck off."

"Hey!" He called, watching as I leapt over the crate between us and shoved him aside. "What do you think you're doing?"

He threw his hands up and yelled at me again when I simply walked around the side of the post beside the wall and put my hand against the barrel. I swung my legs over and jumped back into the obstacle course, now with the wall at my back.

I threw my two middle fingers up and said, "Five seconds!"

With that, I turned to run. He had crates set up in a checkered fashion to block the path to the next obstacle, which looked to be a row of short slabs of concrete barriers stolen from some construction site somewhere.

I hopped atop one of the crates and started to jump from one to another just when Derek landed on the ground on the other side of the wall. He looked up from where he was crouched and I was admittedly surprised that his eyes weren't flashing that bright, unnatural red at me.

It seemed he had graciously decided to keep it at least mildly fair. I didn't have time to wonder how he'd gotten over the wall. He was already halfway across the crates, and I'd yet to reach the end.

He crossed them like they were just stepping-stones on a path and I had to work to catch each one. By the time I was at the slabs, he was hot on my heels.

I grabbed the top of one and swung my legs over. There were four more that I had to jump and Derek was right behind me every step of the way. I knocked one over and laughed when he roared in irritation.

Without waiting to see how he would overcome that, I ran around the next corner and saw that there was a mid-sized metallic tunnel he'd set up. Hastily dropping to my hands and knees, I quickly thought that I'd have to army crawl through in order to make it without spending in inordinate amount of time and risking capture.

Now that I was inside I realized that there was actually a moderate incline to the tunnel. It felt like I was a kid trying to climb up a slide again.

With muscle memory I didn't even fully process, I pushed my hands and feet against opposite ends of the tunnel to crawl up. Derek was growling and I felt the change in the close air of the tunnel the moment he entered behind me. I let out a thrilled noise caught somewhere between anticipation and excitement when I felt him latch onto my foot.

I screeched and he yanked me back. The metal squeaked loudly when I lost my grip and my shirt rode up as I started to slide down. Derek made a noise of surprise and I flung my arms out to stop myself from falling deeper.

He could now grab onto my ankle and I barked again when he wrapped a hand around it. Kicking furiously, I tried to scramble away and my toe collided with his face and knocked him back. Derek grunted and I wriggled my foot out of my shoe and climbed to the mouth of the tunnel.

On shaking legs, I emerged to see a tall hanging bar. Hanging from the bar was a rope, and the floor dropped off after that. It seemed like a fairly steep drop and I questioned just how high up that tunnel had taken me.

"Lainey!" Derek's voice echoed through the tunnel and spurred me into movement. I blindly leapt off the ledge and managed to catch the rope.

It swung me far and I screamed loudly and wind-milled my arms when I let go and flew straight into the next obstacle, which happened to be a ditch.

I rolled and felt dirt under my skin and I'm pretty positive that I might have shattered my kneecap from the impact of landing on the hard ground. Gasping from the pain, I heard Derek yell from the mouth of the tunnel.

"Don't stop!"

I sucked in a hot breath and clutched at my thigh. Using every ounce of will I had left—all in the name of proving Derek Hale wrong—I pushed myself to my feet and teetered unsteadily to the side, almost falling over. I stumbled until I was standing crookedly, favoring my left side since it was my right knee that was injured, and I limped on to the next obstacle, wondering in the back of my head why Derek hadn't just caught me yet.

The further I progressed, the more I realized that this entire obstacle course was set up running back and forth. I had to turn a corner to find the next challenge.

Ramps. Of course, they were ramps. Putting my head down, I forged ahead. It seemed that with every step I took, the pain dulled from intolerably excruciating, to knock me on my ass sharp, and by the time I'd crested the top of the first ramp, I knew if I was still human I'd have been able to force myself to limp on it.

I dropped down with my left leg hitting the ground first. Then I continued on, over the next ramp, and the urge to stop after they were over was almost too much.

"Lainey," Derek said, suddenly at my side. He grabbed my arm and I didn't even have the energy to shake him off. "Are you really gonna quit now? Are you really that weak?"

"I'm trying!" How could he say that? I was trying so hard! How can he not see that?

"Well, try harder!" He growled, and flung my arm over his shoulder to walk me to the next obstacle.

"What are you doing?" I frowned, trying to pull away. But he tightened his grip and herded me towards the start of what looked like a hand-built, enclosed structure.

He pushed me towards the front of the corridor. "You have to go first; we can't both fit."

I shook my head and took a breath. "You said you would break my arm if you caught me."

"And I still might," He scowled through his teeth. "Just go! Before I change my mind!"

I yanked my arm out of his grasp and grumbled under my breath. When I was inside I almost ran straight into a low hanging wall straight away. I ducked at the last moment and continued on.

The whole obstacle was like that: climbing over, maneuvering around, or ducking under pieces of walls and spikes in the ground. Where did he find this shit?

We came out to dodging panels. It was made of short, wide rows of walls, not unlike the slabs from before. My knee was barely twinging in protest at this point and it allowed me to move more fluidly as I picked up speed again and zigzagged through them.

"You're closer now!" Derek called, as I caught sight of the next obstacle.

A bridge. A very, very narrow bridge. It was maybe about as thick as the painted stripes of a parking spot. It started at the ground and went up high enough that it would be all too easy to fall down and actually injure yourself on such a narrow surface, before it turned sharply at a ninety-degree angle to the right and continued up even higher, turned back to the left, and then declined down to the floor.

I followed it all the way, swaying from side to side. My balance was apparently abysmal, but it was just enough for me to skirt the edges without tipping over. I almost fell four times and by the end I actually threw my head back and groaned at the sight of the broken bridge. There were two posts, the first one taller than the last one, with enough of a ledge on top to have room for both of my feet, but _only_ my feet. I leapt onto the first one and flung my arms forward to catch my balance.

One more breath, and I hopped to the next one.

Then the bridge was done. Turning the corner, I came on to a much more imaginative obstacle: a stack of crates with two wide, tall rectangular sections missing, like windows. I jogged forward and swung my legs over the 'window', ducking inside. It opened into an apex ladder made of thick steps of wood. That one went very quickly.

Finally, it ended with a ramp that led up to a stack of crates that steeply dropped onto a shorter stack of crates, and then I was on the ground.

I didn't hesitate to roll with the final drop and splay, spread-eagle on the ground.

"Eight minutes, thirty nine seconds," Derek informed me, standing over top without even a drop of sweat on his body that I could see.

I panted at him and rolled my eyes. "You… you built that all by yourself?"

Derek looked back at it. "It took some time."

I snorted. "Are you hoping to train an army?"

He raised his eyebrows down at me. "No. I'm going to train a pack."

"That was rhetorical." I rolled my eyes again.

"After you catch your breath, I want to—"

"If you say one more word, I will injure you."

Derek smirked. "You really believe that, don't you?"

"One of these days," I warned. "One of these days…"

He raised his eyebrow at me. "There are better chances of Peter being canonized."

"Yeah?" I snorted. "Sounds like Peter and Ray should get together to go bowling." I paused. "Wait, who's Peter again?"

"My uncle." And that was all he said on the matter. I tried not to look too deflated that there wasn't more to the story that he was willing to share, but I could hardly criticize him for keeping his shit private. Unsure of the correct response, I just stayed quiet while he went to inspect a crate of the obstacle course. Derek said, almost to himself, "I think the course needs more climbing, what do you think?"

"I think you're a machine. You've transcended the werewolf excuse. You operate on a different level. You and Tom Cruise both. Are you a lizard person?"

"A what?" Derek flatly asked, his face scrunched and dripped with the unspoken verdict that I was a complete lunatic. He didn't stick around to hear the answer. He stripped his shirt off and approached the punching bags, starting to attack them with a practiced, precise routine I knew must have taken years to perfect.

"Uh… you know," I said, rolling onto my stomach to watch him, appreciating his impeccable physique. "Lizard people? The Reptilian Elite?"

He didn't even turn around, but his deep voice still carried over the depot. "Lainey, did you hit your head when you came off the rope?"

"No! I swear, it's a thing! Aliens from outer space that run the government and media and… Donald Rumsfeld? Come on. Louis C.K. proved that one!" He sighed heavily and shook his head as if to clear it of nonsense, punching the bag with enough vigor to make it sway. "What? Derek! Look it up!"

"No."

"Fine," I rolled back over and crossed my arms. "I don't really see how you have any room to be skeptical. You're a werewolf, for Christ's sake."

"And you're an idiot."

I barked out a laugh and suddenly remembered who I was talking to, and how casual I had gotten with him, and how I had let my guard down enough to joke with him. It felt… weird. Not bad, a little refreshing, actually, given that being around Derek was like an emotionally and physically draining experience.

Even though we had still been arguing, it felt different. Lighter. I wondered if it would ever happen again.

"Okay, get up." He said. "And you might put your sweatshirt back on."

"Really?" I whined. "More running?"

"Endurance—"

"Oh, my god, _fine_ , I'll put my sweatshirt on, just—for the love of god—shut the fuck up!"

Derek made an unpleasant noise, and I paused in the motion of getting to my feet so I could raise my eyebrows at him. What? Has no one told him that before? I found that hard to believe.

"Move it!" He barked.

I sighed loudly.


	6. Chapter 6

The next day passed much the same as the last two nights I'd been training. We were now less than a week away from the first full moon. Training was no less intense than it'd started out as. Derek had fully implemented the use of the obstacle course.

In fact, after the usual run to start, he had me practice the thing again. Twice. And after that he finished with another run, this one longer than the others, and we went out to the edge of the cliff again to look at the city.

I hadn't tried to crack him for conversation after the weird little part of last night when I talked to him about conspiracy theories. Derek, to his credit, treated me and acted the exact same as always. He was annoyed. I was cranky. We argued, constantly. It really made for an exhausting day. Er, night.

That's the other thing. Derek's getting my times all mixed up. I'm starting to associate the daylight with sleep. I've never paid much attention to the hours I keep, because I've never had to keep a strict schedule. I'd just be so intoxicated that I passed out from the haze of it all and sleep straight through to the next evening. Now, I fully expect to be able to go home and sleep off the latest training exercises once that sun rises.

It's time to go home. At least, that's what I assumed.

"Wait," Derek said. "Come over here. Sit."

"What?" I frowned. Derek seated himself on the dirt floor. He noticed me standing there, unmoving, and patted the ground next to him. "Why?"

"Just trust me," He frowned. And then he tucked his legs in, crossed them, and laid his hands on his knees, palms out. He closed his eyes. I gawked at him. "Come here, Lainey," He said, quietly.

"Um, no?"

The sun was starting to rise. I knew it, because there was light peeking across the beams in the top of the ceiling and reflecting off the glass. Soon enough the sky would be streaked with pink and orange and yellow, and god damn it, I wanted to see that.

"Lainey." Derek's eyes were open and he was frowning at me. "Sit. Now."

I cast one last longing look up at the windows and sighed. Once I was settled in front of him, I shifted uncomfortably at the rigid surface of the floor. "You know, a please would go a long way."

Derek rolled his eyes. "If I asked you to _please_ sit, you'd laugh."

I smirked. "No argument here. But I probably would have done it."

"No, you wouldn't have," He growled. "Now shut up."

I stifled a chuckle and cleared my throat. "Okay, do I close my—"

"You're sitting wrong. Cross your legs."

"Oh, my god, Derek. Can I not sit how I freaking want?"

"Not for this," He said, bluntly, in that matter-of-fact tone of his. Derek leaned forward and grabbed under my knees. My eyes went wide and I couldn't stifle the gasp or the exclamation as he pulled me forward and positioned my legs to be crossed.

"Seriously? You could've asked!" I admonished, my face hot, and Derek looked up to raise his eyebrow at me. For a lingering moment, he paused, leaning over me with his hands still resting on my legs.

"I _did_ ask." His lips were drawn into a tight, disapproving frown.

" _Lainey_ ," I imitated in a deep voice. " _Hugging your knees doesn't build endurance. Crossing your legs builds endurance_."

He snorted and sat back to settle back into proper meditating position. "Sitting won't build endurance."

"Right, so what's the point of this again?"

Derek offered me a glare and then proceeded to pretend as though I hadn't asked that question. "Hands like this," He told me. "This is something I was taught as a kid. It helped me control my temper."

I snorted. "How's that working out for you?" Derek glared at me from the side of his eyes. Halting the laugh in my throat, I rolled my lips into my mouth and waited for him to continue.

"When you're born as a werewolf you experience the shift very early."

"Wait, you were born as a werewolf?" I balked.

Derek gritted his teeth. "Yes. My whole family was."

"How does that even work? It's genetic?!"

Derek sighed loudly. "Yes."

"So… what about the sophomore?"

"Scott," Derek supplied. "He was bitten."

"You bit him, too?" I frowned and looked around the dingy depot. "Then why isn't he here?"

" _I_ didn't bite him." He looked away and I could tell his patience was wearing thin. "My uncle Peter did."

"…Oh. That sounds… complicated." I pressed my lips together and debated asking, but something told me this was a sensitive topic for him. Maybe it was the way he didn't immediately chew me out or try to change the subject, or the way he brooded quietly and frowned down at his lap.

"Anyways, about the time everyone else is hitting puberty, we're shifting under our first full moon. I've mentioned the first time is the most volatile. The younger you are, the less capable you are of controlling your urges when you're like that. By the same token, I was raised into this life. I was taught techniques of control.

"You have to find something that grounds you. Something that brings you back from the brink of insanity, and keeps you lucid. For me it's anger." I smirked again because I thought it was probably more like his _sheer force of will_ that kept him from going ballistic. "But it's different for everyone. There's not really a proven way to predict what your anchor will end up being. Which is why one of the very first things I was taught was meditation."

"Derek…" I said, quietly.

"What?"

"You're disturbing my concentration. I'm feeling very relaxed and focused, but you keep talking and it's bothering me."

He sighed. "Have you meditated before?"

"I've been high on a cocktail of downers and hallucinogenic before. Same thing, I bet. It's… you know. Mystical. Spiritual. Uplifting. I'm contemplating how it felt."

His voice changed, and I knew that if I opened my eyes I'd see him alert and frowning at me in deep disapproval. "Lainey, I just said you needed to be grounded—"

" _Shhhhh_."

His mouth snapped shut and my lips twitched when I heard him growl.

I knew he was itching to critique me, but being that he couldn't very well read my mind, I ignored him.

It was very, very still inside the depot at that moment. As if even the walls around us held their breath, everything seemed to relax. He shifted beside me and I continued to breathe deeply and concentrate on the feeling of walking along a street with a pink and red sunset cheerfully greeting me, and the feeling of irritating Derek. Glorious.

"Oohhhmm," I hummed. The silence was shattered. Like a cloud of smoke in the wind, the short-lived peace was gone.

Derek cleared his throat and I felt him shift in front of me again. My throat tightened with unshed mirth.

I took a deep breath. "Oooohhhhhmmmmm—"

"Lainey—"

A ringtone interrupted us both. My back pocket vibrated and for a long moment I just let it continue to ring and pretended not to notice.

" _Lainey!"_

"Hm!" My eyes snapped open and the cellphone's shrill ring continued to play. "Oh!"

By the time I dug my phone out and was tapping at the home button, I was grinning widely. It fell as soon as I read the number on the caller ID.

"Who is it?" Derek grumbled, irritated because he no doubt knew I'd been mocking him.

I bit my lip. "I have to go." Tucking my phone back into my pocket, I stood. "See you tonight."

"Lainey, wait," Derek said, standing as well. He looked like he wanted to ask me more about who called, but he could sense that it was the wrong time. I hadn't bugged him about his uncle. Would he return the favor? I stared back at him. "Come at seven tonight. I want to get an early start."

I turned away without another word, striding to the exit.

xxx

The sky is even better than I'd imagined. The clouds were thin and wispy, even sort of jagged, and that made the brilliant orange, pink and purple colors that reflected off of it shine even brighter. It looked like a watercolor painting.

But it was different now. I couldn't appreciate the beauty, not when I knew whom I had to call back. And I _did_ have to call him back.

I redialed the number and lifted the phone to my ear with a sigh.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Sheriff," I said, tiredly, because I knew he had no good news for me.

"Lainey?"

"Yeah."

Sheriff seemed to sigh. "Lainey, I tried to call you. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Is this about Kelsey?"

"No, no, it's nothing like that. It's… look, I don't usually do this. I mean, I do, but not—not like this. I was actually going to find you and tell you in person but I couldn't find you at your house or The Beacon. I'm glad we exchanged numbers at the hospital. Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," I insisted through my teeth. But then I took a deep breath and tried to keep my tone neutral. "It's Ray, isn't it?"

He didn't even ask how I guessed. "Yes. He was picked up three cities over, in Sacramento."

"Sacramento!?"

Sheriff started to say a word but sighed, the verbal equivalent of a shrug, and I rubbed my face and sat down on the bench I'd come to stand in front of. The park was deserted this early, save for the passed-out drunks, but they were still asleep. I heard birds chirping around me pleasantly, like they mocked me.

"They processed him, Lainey. He's going to prison to await his first hearing. He'll have a sentencing and then, if he's lucky, if the judge is feeling generous, then he won't get more than a year. He might even get out early. He's being charged with—"

"I don't even want to know," I cut him off, my voice cold. "God damn it!"

There was a pause and Sheriff sighed again. "I'm sorry. I just… there's more."

"Great," I spat insincerely, smacking my hand on my leg. "Yeah, just keep piling it on!"

"He has fines, Lainey. Substantial, outstanding fines."

"Well, I don't know how we can pay it," I exclaimed. "It's not like we're sitting on a mountain of gold over here!"

"I know. That's the other part." He paused. "There's a very good chance that they'll have to liquidate his assets."

I turned the phrase over in my mind, thinking I knew what it sounded like, but hoping that I was wrong. "It… sounds like you're telling me they're gonna take our house, Sheriff. But that can't be right."

"Lainey, he owes a _lot_ of money."

I put the phone down, scrunching my hands into fists as I battled with the urge to find something and break it. "Fuck!" I screamed, and sucked in a panicked breath. I waited for the wave of emotion to pass, and then I picked up the phone again. "Okay," I said, my voice cracking. "So… that's just it, then? He's… gonna go away for a year and then we'll lose our house and that's just it?"

"You might not lose it," Sheriff hesitantly admitted. "But it doesn't look good."

"That sounds like bullshit," I bluntly told him. "Don't try to make me feel better."

"Honestly, Lainey, I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen. The only thing I can do is brace you for the worst possible scenario. Now, do you have any other living relatives?"

"No," I immediately said, and then paused. "I don't think so! I don't know..." Angrily, I decided, "…No."

"Okay, well that will have to be determined, then. And if not—or I guess either way—you might have to appear in court."

"What? No! Why?"

"You're not eighteen yet."

"In two months!" I practically yelled. "Why do I have to keep reminding everyone of that? Not even, now! Seven freaking weeks!"

"Lainey I'm not sure that will make a difference to the court—"

"This shit moves slow, right?" I asked, desperately, realizing that there was no way I could appear in court or else they'd realize my identity had been stolen years ago and that Ray pawned it off and God knows what would happen to me then. "There are other cases? When is his hearing?"

Sheriff paused, apparently knowing where I was going with this. "In two weeks—"

"Come on! They made _OJ Simpson_ wait longer than that!"

Sheriff sighed.

"Isn't there some way we could push it?"

"Lainey, I—"

"Seven weeks!" I begged. "Please, I just need seven weeks. I'll be eighteen and then Ray can do whatever the fuck he wants and I won't have to worry about it!"

"I can't control the courts, Lainey!"

"Please, _please_ , I'll do anything, Sheriff, I can't go to court!"

He sounded suspicious now. "Why?"

"I just can't! If I do they'll try and force me into a freaking foster family! Sheriff, I'm almost eighteen, what foster family is going to take me? Where would I go in the mean time? Don't put me through that. Please!"

There was a long, long pause, as Sheriff thought it over. For a moment I thought we'd lost connection. Then, I heard an exhausted sigh, and when he spoke again he sounded very conflicted, like he shouldn't be saying anything at all. "I can't help you Lainey."

I wanted to cry. I almost hung up right then and there. Tears pricked at my eyes and I felt my lip trembling. How had my day gone so bad, so quickly? And all because of Ray! It was so hard not to hate him.

"That would look really bad for me. If it ever got out, for whatever reason, it could look really, really bad for me. It would be unethical of me. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I paused, grumbling. "Not really."

"Try to. If I were _going_ to help you, I would say that you should go to the library. If I _could_ help you I might suggest that you should find a petition for emancipation. Maybe you could ask some of the librarians to help you find a petition to appear in court without representation. Get a job. Find a place to stay. Do all that, and maybe if you submit those forms, _today_ , then that might, hypothetically, get processed faster since it's a civil case and it's not criminal. There are plenty of criminals waiting for their preliminary trials; not nearly as many emancipation cases. And that might at least look good to the judge overseeing Ray's case, to hear that you filed for emancipation. It might not even work. There are a lot of details I'm leaving out. You'd be better off with a lawyer, but… Anyways, if I _could_ , then that would be what I might suggest."

"Hypothetically speaking, I would be eternally grateful to you," I sighed, sniffing.

Sheriff's tone still sounded solemn as he said, "Good luck, Lainey. I really hope you might think of something. I really wish the best for you."

"Thank you," I say, meaning every part of the phrase with everything I had, and I doubted he would ever really know what it meant to me.

"And Lainey?" He added, before I hung up.

"Yeah?"

"Happy early birthday."

I choked out a laugh. "Thank you."

xxx

After the last visit, I'd decided that I hate the library. That was no less true on my return less than a week later, a personal record for me. It seemed the dislike was mutual.

The men behind the counter gave me those same haughty, pinched-mouth glares when they recognized me, and then promptly turned their backs to pretend they didn't notice me.

I had to physically drag myself over to the counter. When they didn't immediately look up, I cleared my throat. The one on the left scratched his ear.

"Excuse me," I said, struggling to keep a civil tone.

The one on the right perked up and offered me a bright smile. "Back so soon?" He asked. "I will warn you that through the week you are permitted forty-five minutes of free use on the computers. But, again, it is a one time charge of five dollars to get a library pass, and you can use them for free for as long as you need." He flashed me a smile. "Would you like to sign up? You don't even need to have an ID."

As if he knew I wouldn't have one. Which, I didn't, beyond a rewards card for the grocery store by my house, but that was beside the point. I scowled at him. "I really don't anticipate having to come back."

"What? Your _warehouse_ project didn't work out?" He asked with fake sympathy.

My nose twitched. "Look, I just need some help about finding a petition for court."

The one on the left looked up at that and the one speaking to me let a slow smile spread his lips. "Of course you do," He nodded. "Would you like a phonebook to find a lawyer?"

My eye began to twitch. "Actually, I was told that I could find the necessary files online."

"Online?" He made a face of surprise and confusion. "Jeremy?"

"You could," Jeremy agreed with a nod. "That would be at the courts of California's website, under the tab for rules and forms. That's courts, dot c-a, dot g-o-v, slash—"

"Child, do you require more assistance than a web address?"

It was the woman who'd greeted me before. She still looked like a professor straight out of Hogwarts, with her long, dark dress, and her grey hair that was clipped into a bun. The quintessential librarian. She was missing spectacles, though.

"Very likely," I admitted, shooting the men a dirty look.

She nodded once and gestured for me to follow her. "I will show you the necessary forms."

I sighed and resigned myself to the reality that I would be filling out forms to avoid appearing in court with Professor McGonagall for the foreseeable future, instead of tucking into my bed until seven o'clock tonight. Well, you know what they say. You make plans, and life just laughs.

xxx

The woman, I realized, was really not as bad as she made herself seem at first. She was very concise and formal, and she seemed like someone had sucked all the joy out of her with a vacuum years ago and never had the decency to unplug her since. Not that I'm one to talk. Glasshouses, and all that.

Speaking of houses, I might not even have one soon. As we printed out the last form and I thanked the matriarchal woman for lending me her precious time, I reflected on the notion that I'd in fact taken my house for granted.

How many nights had I elected to sleep at The Beacon instead in of my own bed? Or even on a park bench, or under a bridge? Too many times. And now it will never really be a choice again.

No, for at least the next few months, I will have to survive off of someone else's good will. I will be forced to take an offered hand, to accept charity. But I can't really grow as my own independent person, because I don't have a real identity.

I'd said to the Sheriff that it wasn't fair, and that's still true. Once I finally reached home I stared up at the tall, two story Tudor style house and sighed so heavily, I felt it in my bones. I pushed my hair back from my face and drank in every detail as if it was the last time I'd ever see it.

It was still a mess inside, of course. Just three rooms looked traversable. My bedroom, the only bathroom in the house that I'll use, and the laundry room. Those were the rooms I regularly employed. Even the kitchen went untouched by my hand. Ray had wrecked everything else. But then, was that any real surprise?

I sat in my bedroom with the forms lying on the covers in front of me. With my chin in my hands, I stared at them and thought. And thought. And thought.

And decided that I couldn't do it. I couldn't submit them. I knew that if I did, they would find the truth about my identity. I was too scared to find out what would happen. The risk was simply too great.

I had no clue what they'd do, but I knew it wouldn't be good. It's not like someone hacked our bank accounts or stole my nonexistent debit card. Ray _pawned_ it off. I'm sure if I bothered looking, I'd find that it was some form of fraud.

So I set the forms on top of my dresser, left my bedroom, walked down the hall and went up the stairs to the attic. I ignored everything else there of any sentimental value. It would be too sad.

I gave myself tunnel vision. I wouldn't look at the old, dusty cardboard dollhouse made of cereal boxes that sat in the corner after I carried it up some time in junior high and left it. I wouldn't look at the clothes rack filled from end-to-end with my mother's maternity clothes that Ray apparently never bothered to hock.

And I did _not_ look at my mother's urn, sitting, buried in a mound of crap, save for the top of the decorative lid that stuck out.

I just went straight for the ancient, unused suitcase in the corner. I dragged it out of its little hidey-hole and pretended not to notice the dust and cobwebs that covered the lid over in the pile.

I went back to my room and packed that stupid suitcase full of all my clothes. And do you know what? It wasn't even half full. So I went to grab all my shoes and realized I only had two pairs—one of which I was wearing. So I grabbed the stuff from on top of my dresser, too, and stuck that in, leaving the forms untouched where I'd laid them earlier. Still, it wasn't quite full.

I started crying in earnest, then. I sat on my bed and cried until I couldn't anymore, until there was nothing left. Something inside of me broke. Part of me kept waiting to hear the front or back door slam and see Ray come barreling in here asking about his stash again, or to hear him clambering around in some other part of the house doing god-knows-what. Waiting for him to come search for money.

Of course, he couldn't. He was in prison now.

I took a deep breath of relief and sighed. A few more tears welled up and I pushed them away with the back of my hand. It was almost six-thirty now. I would be early. I closed my stupid, shitty suitcase and rolled down the hall and to the living room, and cast one last look around my house. I closed the front door for what might be the very last time, and I left, sneaking one last glance before I walked away.

xxx

Derek looked surprised to see me barge in so loudly. I wondered if that's what I looked like to Ray, when he came home, and snorted at the thought. Derek scowled at me.

"What is that?" He pointed at the suitcase.

"It's a suitcase," I blandly told him.

"I can see that," He snapped. "For what?"

"To pack things."

His eyes flashed with temper. "I understand what a suitcase is used for, Lainey. Why did you bring it here?"

"Thought I'd move in," I said with forced casualness, looking away as I dropped it at the edge of the fire pit and crossed my arms. "Ready to run?"

Derek shifted on his feet and looked away from the suitcase. Awkwardly, he said, "Okay."

Stunned, I didn't move when he passed me to go to the door. He turned and shrugged impatiently. "What?" He asked.

"I was joking," I murmured, and stiffly gestured to the suitcase. "It's because… I can't go home anymore. So now I have to keep it with me. I was just gonna take it to The Beacon. You know, after we're done."

Derek frowned. "They let you sleep there during the day?"

I froze in surprise again. Slowly blinking, I said, "Oh. Er, maybe."

"Maybe you should just stay," He shrugged. "It would simplify things."

"Simplify," I repeated, like a freaking weirdo, and Derek echoed my unspoken thought in the way he looked at me.

"So… anyways, forget it for now, you can decide later. We shouldn't wait any more. We're behind schedule."

 _I_ can decide. Apparently, this was one thing he wouldn't force. Derek shook his head and then finally went to the door, not waiting for me any longer. Tearing my eyes from the suitcase, I pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt and followed him.

Wait, did he say behind schedule? I'm at least five minutes early!

"Campbell, move it!" Derek called before my foot had even touched the first step.

"I'm _coming!_ " I shouted back, grumbling to myself.

What a weird fucking day.

xxx

He pushed me just as hard during the runs, of course, but he did let me enjoy the sight of the city without complaining. I spent a long time just staring down, losing myself in my thoughts. About Ray. About me. Mostly about me. And Derek, too.

We took the usual break after the runs, but this time I'd stuck close to him by the punching bags. I didn't verbalize the fact that I was actively avoiding the suitcase, which still lay on the other side of the depot by the fire pit, but I don't think I had to.

Derek, for what it's worth, didn't seem to particularly care one way or the other. He wasn't letting my strange mood-swings bother him. As usual, he'd peeled his shirt and started to punch restlessly at the bags. I thought if it were up to him he'd keep us going twenty-four seven. Derek didn't _need_ breaks.

And you could tell that he probably didn't slow down or stop when he was by himself. Now that I took the moment to really look him over, I could openly admit it to myself. The man was beautiful. As he moved to punch the bag, his arm extending outward until his fist collided with the black plastic material that rippled outward from the impact, I took in the muscles that were defined in his body. Muscles I didn't even know existed, like the three long, thin ones that ran along the sides of his abs like constant finger marks, as if some invisible hands grabbed him and squeezed him tight. He turned and they changed length and shifted directions slightly.

I realized that he had turned to look at me, and apparently caught me staring. It didn't faze him. I wondered what it would take to surprise him. "Do you even _have_ sweat glands?" I asked, and his eyebrows rose as he blinked at the question.

Then, he smirked. "It takes a little more than a couple punches to get me to sweat."

"Hmmm. Really? And the two hour run we had outside? What about that?" I asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Derek shrugged and looked me over. "For me, that was a warm up."

"You're kidding." I squinted my eyes at him and he shook his head.

"Not. Now, get up."

I sighed heavily but grudgingly obliged. I turned to the obstacle course, but he stopped me by calling my name.

He shook his head at me and gestured for me to join him at the bag. "Today, we fight."

"Fight?"

"You should start learning as soon as you can," He said, directing me to stand properly. "Elbows in, protect yourself at all times. Your arms can take more hits than your face." He tapped the bottom of them. "Higher. Stop, like that. There. See?"

He raised his fists and shifted between his feet. Slowly, he moved his fist forward like he was punching, and didn't stop until his knuckle connected with my raised fists.

"That's where people aim. That's where you need to block."

"It's not just about the face, though," I pointed out.

"Right. Okay, put your hands down."

I wasn't too surprised that he gave me a thorough run-down of how to defend myself. He didn't even mention throwing punches, not yet.

Derek's hands were warm and firm when he placed them around my neck. What was he doing? We'd never been so hands-on before. It was freaking me out. "What are you doing?" I squeaked.

Derek didn't seem to appreciate the interruption. "Showing you how to defend yourself. One of the most common attacks is for someone to try and grab your throat. You need to be prepared." He glanced down at his hands around my neck. "Grab my right forearm with both your hands."

I did so, wondering if he could feel my heart racing. I tried to steady my breath so it wasn't so obvious.

Derek's fingers shifted on my skin slightly and I struggled to maintain eye contact with him, so I looked down. But that was worse because I realized he was still shirtless. _Jesus fucking Christ!_

"Lainey." Derek startled me and my hands flew to his when I jumped.

"What?"

"I said, grab my wrist with your left hand and push the your right thumb into my right palm."

I blinked and looked down at his toned arms. "Oh." Moving my hands from his, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and slid my thumb between his right hand and my neck, breaking his hold with his hand caught in mine.

"Now pull."

I hesitated.

"Pull!"

I yanked him forward and when his arm was straight, he yelled, "Turn! Now, push down with your left arm!"

Currently, I had his right arm locked rigidly in my grip with my left arm lying over it to secure it from moving at all. If I pushed down, it would either snap his elbow or force him to submit, and even if he did it could still very well dislocate his shoulder.

"Lainey! What are you doing? Push!"

I did, until he told me to stop. Finally I let go and pushed away from him, putting about three steps between us.

"All right, turn around," He told me, twirling his finger. I rolled my eyes and sighed, but turned my back.

He came up behind me until his chest was pressed against me and his arm wrapped around me. He clasped his hands tightly over my chest. Suddenly, he squeezed and lifted me up in a bear hug, and I kicked on instinct.

I knew this one already. Before he could even utter a single instruction, as soon as he dropped his hold low enough for my feet to touch the ground I spread them and bent my knees. I bent over and reached under to grab his ankle from between my legs and yanked up as hard as I could, causing Derek to slip and fall on his back.

I dropped his ankle and turned around to put my hands out with a wide smile. "Told you!" I said, and he glowered at me. "See? I told you I could put you on your ass!"

He rolled his eyes. "You're just starting out. You could never drop me in a real fight without my permission."

"Permission?" I sneered. " _Oh, Derek, I know we're in the middle of something here, but I was just wondering if you might permit me to knock you on your rear?_ "

Derek, fully recognizing the mock for what it was, swung his leg out and knocked my feet out from under me. I fell over like a bowling pin and Derek shortly responded, "No."

I groaned and rubbed the back of my head, and suddenly Derek sprung to his feet. He made it look effortless and I considered imitating him, until he offered a hand down to me.

As soon as my hand came within his reach he grabbed my wrist and flung me across the floor, cementing my resolve to never trust anyone to help me up ever again. Derek was stalking towards me before I'd even sat back up.

He attacked and I rolled out of the way, just barely missing his heel when it bashed into the ground. I tried to hop away but he grabbed me by the back of the shirt and wrapped an arm around my neck. "Dead," He informed me.

"Let's go again," I volunteered, eager to prove him wrong. When my hands pulled at his arms he only tightened his grip.

"You're not even out of the first attack yet," He almost laughed and pulled me flush against his chest in a clear challenge. "Come on, Lainey. You think it's just that easy?"

"You're not the only one who knows how to snap an elbow in half, Derek," I warned with a low growl.

His voice was low and vibrated my back as he murmured, "Prove it."

He'd barely finished the response when I broke his hold using the technique he'd just showed me. As he had mentioned in times past, power was not an issue for me. I had enough strength to keep up with Derek—but he was so agile and fast, and in no time at all my cheek hit the ground again.

He waited for me to get to my feet and then told me to go again. When I asked him how many more times, he growled. "Until I think you've had enough!"

I lunged before he'd finished the thought. Derek deflected it easily and turned with my tackle, throwing me to the ground, and he planted his boot on my neck to pin me down. "Dead."

I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up. We did it for another couple of times, but no matter what I tried, it always seemed to end the same way: Derek deflecting my attacks and me on the ground, a little more sore each time.

Derek stood over me triumphantly. "This is pathetic."

I growled insolently. "Why don't you come down here and say that to my face?"

Without warning, Derek's heel struck out again, missing my wrist by about a millimeter. I took the opportunity to grab his ankle and pulled. Hard.

He stumbled but caught himself. It distracted him long enough to allow me to get back to my feet. He lunged for me and I dodged out of the way. It happened quickly—in the matter of a second—but before he had the chance to turn around, I threw myself onto his back, hoping that it would be enough to throw him off balance. It was enough.

I'd gained some muscle mass through the time he'd spent training me and I was familiar with ways to put my opponent on the ground—thanks in no small part to Derek's teachings—and he really shouldn't have been as unprepared for my attack as he was.

Maybe he thought I'd never actually try to tackle him. Maybe he assumed that even if I tried, I wouldn't be strong enough. Whatever the case was, I bowled Derek over and we crashed to the ground clumsily.

"Ugh," I grunted, wincing from Derek's elbow that had bashed straight into my ribs when he tried to catch himself. I rolled off of him and wanted to just lay there to catch my breath, but I knew he wouldn't let me get away that easily, so I quickly sprung back to my feet.

Derek was up already and circling me with wild eyes. "What the hell was that?" He growled.

"I wanted to see if I could actually do it!"

"Do _what?"_

"Put you on your ass." I smirked and looked him over. "But your face is a close second."

His eyes darkened and my eyes glittered at the irritated scowl he rewarded me with. "What do you want? A trophy? A pat on the back?"

I was struck with the urge to tap my cheek and ask for a kiss but for some reason that thought startled me, so I quickly banished it and instead said, "Just trying to even the score, that's all."

"So this is all a game to you?" He frowned and stopped circling me, and suddenly it felt like I'd done something wrong. "After _everything_ , after everything I've told you, this is just some competition?"

"What?" I dropped my fists and gawked at him. "No! That's not what I meant!"

"Kelsey _died_ , Campbell, and all you're focused on is having a good time." Derek shook his head. "What will it take for you to start treating this seriously?"

"I am!" I defended. "What are you even talking about?"

"I need a break," He said, stalking past me to head to the cart. His shoulder caught mine and I stumbled to the side as I watched him, stricken. "If you could just not talk for the next thirty minutes, I would appreciate it."

I stood there, stunned, digesting his words slowly. The more it sat with me the more I felt chastened and the angrier I got. Angry, not at him, but at myself, for misrepresenting my intentions; angry because I knew that I needed this now, angry because I always found ways to screw things up.

It didn't take long for me to follow him. It took a long time for me to find him, however. He wasn't in the cart, or the by the fire pit. I headed up the steps and looked out in the classification yard, but he wasn't there.

I went back inside and stood at he bottom of the steps at a loss, wondering if he'd just left to go somewhere and get away from me for a while. The sound of something metal clacking together came from a part of the depot I'd not been in yet.

It was past the subway cart. I hadn't even realized there was anything behind it. In the corner, behind a messy stack of crates, I found him, lying back on a steel bench press. I doubted I'd ever find out where he got all of this crap.

I hovered next to a wheelbarrow that was filled with various weights. From the looks of it, Derek had three of the largest weights on each end and he was pumping them like they weighed little more than a small child.

"It's not like I'm actively trying to piss you off," I started.

Derek didn't respond beyond the little breaths that puffed from his lips with each rep.

I sighed heavily and cocked my hips as I looked away. "Okay, _fine_. I am. But it's just because you make it so god damn fun!"

Derek grunted and I cut in before he could interrupt.

"Okay! I know, I know. Geez." I turned away, unable to look at him while I forced myself to be so honest. "Look, I'm not _used_ to this, okay? People don't stick around me very long. They just don't. I'm not saying that for pity, I'm trying to… I don't know, explain?"

Derek didn't offer any input as I took a moment to pick up one of the smaller weights and squeeze it in my hands.

"The call I got this morning was about my dad." I squeezed the metal tightly. " _Ray_. He's going back to prison." The weight snapped in half and I gasped as I held the two split pieces aloft. "Shit! Sorry!"

There was a loud clank as Derek placed the bar into the brackets behind me and I gawked at the broken weight in my hands.

"What the fuck?" I muttered in bewilderment. "God, I'm fucking strong!"

"You're probably better off without him," Derek said, stiffly, and I jumped because he was right next to me. I noticed that he was finally sweating and bit my lip when he scowled at the shattered weight in my hands.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"Don't be." He shrugged. "None of us would have used it anyways. It's only twenty pounds."

"Okay… well, anyways." I sighed loudly and dumped the broken pieces back into the barrel. They clattered into the pile and I crossed my arms and faced Derek, looking over his shoulder at the bench press he'd been using. "I was eight years old the first time Ray forgot about me. He…" I rolled my eyes and turned away. "It was early March, and this was when he still did his taxes. He'd just gotten his returns. So he blew all that money on… whatever, drugs, I guess, and decided he needed some new shoes since his were coming apart.

"So he put me in the car and drove to the shoe store that used to be by the Vons grocery store, and he went in to get some. But he got distracted and he left me in the car and I don't know where he went but he didn't come back until the next evening.

"I just stayed in the car. No one noticed me. It was fine. At least I wasn't outside. I found a map of Delaware in one of the pockets on the back of the front seats for some reason, and I practically memorized that thing. Did you know there's a city called Wyoming there?"

Derek was frowning deeply and after a moment he shook his head.

"Yeah. So, he found me and he took me for ice cream and then we never talked about it ever again."

"God, Lainey," Derek muttered.

I took a deep breath and turned away to put some much needed distance between us. "Anyways, my point is, I'm not used to people… you know. _Expecting_ shit from me, or whatever. This is all new to me. In, um, a lot of sad ways, probably? So you're just gonna have to… be patient, or whatever. Tell me when I'm screwing up because I probably don't know."

"I'm sorry," Derek said. He looked thoughtful, like his mind was stuck on some part of what I'd told him—it was impossible to know which without asking, and _no fucking way_ , okay?—but his face lacked that sharp accusation I'd come to expect. "This is new to me too," He admitted. "The last beta I tried to train didn't want anything to do with me."

I smirked and immediately hid it with my hand, looking away. "Really?"

Derek elbowed me in the ribs. "Shut up."

I laughed. "Truce?" I asked, holding my hand aloft.

Derek looked down at my hand and for a second I thought he was going to reject it. Surprisingly, he took my hand, and his was rougher than mine—though mine wasn't exactly baby-butt smooth—and it was really warm. He gripped it firmly and shook it. "Truce."

I sighed and put my hands on my hips, turning to the bench press. "So you gonna show me how to use that thing, or what?"

Derek rolled his eyes. "Sure you can handle it?"

My head snapped to him and I narrowed my eyes. "You really shouldn't bait me like that, Derek," I warned. "We _just_ called a truce."

He smirked. "We'll see."


	7. Chapter 7

A shoe nudged my shoulder. "Get up."

I groaned and stayed right where I had collapsed on the ground after the fighting match I'd engaged in and lost with the bench press. "My arms feel like noodles!"

"I told you to use two plates instead of six," Derek reminded me, completely unsympathetic.

"But you use six!"

Derek snorted. "I'm stronger than you."

I pouted. "For now. Give me a couple weeks."

Derek snorted again, and I flipped him off, causing him to shoot me an unimpressed glare.

"What time is it?"

"Three o'clock," He told me. "You delayed us an hour."

"Half an hour," I corrected as I got to my feet and stretched my back. It popped loudly and I winced. "Remember? You told me to shut up for half an hour, so we were gonna take a break anyways."

"This may come as a shock to you, but you _can_ shut up while we train."

"What!" I stomped over to him where he leaned against the doorframe of the cart. "I don't talk while we train! Mostly because I can't talk because I can't _breathe_ —but still!"

He sighed, apparently satisfied at the thought of him working me so hard that I couldn't even speak. "In any case, you slept for an hour an a half so you're still wrong."

I clenched my fists and fixed him with a scathing glare. "Move."

He let me push him aside and watched me pass. "Where are you going?"

"I'm hungry!"

Derek sighed loudly. "We can eat here, you know."

I eyed him skeptically. "No offense, Hale, but I don't like salads."

He snorted. "Good. Me either."

Crossing my arms, I watched him while he went to the cooler. "So, what then? A restaurant? Take out?" I gasped. "Pizza?"

Suddenly, a plastic package flew at my face. I squeaked and threw my hand up and was flabbergasted to see that I caught the square on reflex. I scowled down at it.

"Derek, what the hell is this?"

Seated on the tall crate that I'm beginning to associate as _his spot,_ Derek tore a similar package open. "MREs." He sat a paper plate on his lap and dumped the contents of his package onto it.

I watched, horrified, as something vaguely resembling dog food plopped onto his plate. When he bit an edge off I shuddered. I read the front of my own bland, brown package. "Derek!" I jumped. "What the fuck!? Are these… are these _rations?"_

"Don't be dramatic." He rolled his eyes. "It's pork rib. It's good!"

I watched him continue to bite into his square, unable to even form a proper response. Out of morbid curiosity, I tore the top of mine open. The plastic strip fluttered to my feet and I paused, took a breath, and peeked into the bag.

There was a quiet squelch as some pasty, unidentifiable liquid moved a square of something brown and flecked inside. "Ahhh!" I dropped it and Derek watched in exasperation as I stomped the package ferociously, as if killing a particularly menacing spider, and he froze when I whirled on him. "Derek!"

Before he could move I pounced on him and smacked the offending, insipid, congealed food from his hand. "Drop that! Right now!"

"Lainey!"

"Derek, no!" I scolded, shaking my head. "No! That thing _coughed_ when I opened it!"

He smacked his face. "You wasted it!"

I grabbed his wrist. "Come with me. We are leaving."

"What?" He snatched his hand from mine. "No!"

"Derek, yes."

We engaged in a staring contest. His bright eyes were heated and stubborn and for a moment I thought I would have to physically drag him out of here. Finally, as if coming to the same conclusion that I did, he surrendered with a lingering glare. "Fine."

I latched onto his hand before he could back out and hauled him behind me.

xxx

"Back so soon?" Angie sounded simultaneously amused and surprised when she saw the two of us in the same booth again.

As I scratched my eyebrow I noted that she was the second person to say that to me today. If I were a more sensitive person I would start to feel unwelcome. "You say that like it's a bad thing," I teased, and Angie winked at me.

"Definitely not if he's tipping again!" She pointed her pen at Derek and gave him a charming smile, which he easily returned.

"Of course," He easily agreed, making my jaw drop. His gaze flicked to me and I quickly rearranged my features, but I knew he saw it because his eyes narrowed. "Lainey? Ready to order?"

His voice was significantly chillier when he spoke to me. _He's such a child_ , I thought. "I think… we'll have two pork sandwiches, Angie." I smirked deeply at the intense glare that Derek burned into me. I looked up at the unsure expression on her face and added, "With coleslaw, of course."

"Sweet potatoes for me, actually," Derek said, cocking his eyebrow and crossing his arms at me.

Angie nodded agreeably. "Okay, great! I'll have those right out for you."

She watched for one moment more, apparently confused by our behavior, and then shook her head and left.

As soon as she was gone I said, "Bleh! Sweet potatoes?"

"You just ordered coleslaw and you're criticizing my sweet potatoes?"

"First of all, always order coleslaw with pork sandwiches. It's like cereal and milk. Anything else would be wrong. Second of all, I'll never trust anything you prefer to eat ever again after what I just witnessed," I countered. "I didn't even put any of it in my mouth and I can _still_ taste it! I don't even know how to describe it! Salty, but _dry_ , but _WET_. How is that possible?"

"People have won wars eating those," Derek told me, puffing his chest up.

I made a face. "And lost them, too. Besides, that's really, really sad."

He deflated and rolled his eyes. "I'm not arguing with you anymore."

"Good," I said, crossing my arms.

A moment passed and Derek sighed before chuckling shortly. He shook his head to himself.

I scrunched my face suspiciously. "What? Are you laughing at me?"

"It's just…" He looked up at me and almost seemed to change his mind. Finally, he admitted. "You're nothing like I thought you would be."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Would you relax?" He said, annoyed. "I just meant that when Kelsey introduced us she said you were sick. I guess I expected you to be more… not innocent, but…" Apparently he couldn't decide on a word.

"Sick?" I paused as I tried furiously to rack my brain and remember what she said for myself. But I couldn't. No matter how hard I thought, I just couldn't. "Really? Kelsey introduced us? What did she say?"

Derek looked away as he thought back. "I believe her exact words were, 'This is Lainey. She has a brain tumor.' "

I let out an offended scoff. "Fuck's sake, Kelsey!"

He smirked. "That's what you said then, too."

My cheeks heated with delight at the unexpected story and I pressed my lips together. "She shouldn't have died. She would have been better at this than me."

"What do you mean?" He frowned.

I sighed and rubbed my face. "Just… she had… reasons, you know? A baby cousin. She would have been motivated. She would have better intentions. It just would've different, I guess. Better."

Derek looked dubious. "You're joking."

I shook my head and frowned at him. "No."

"You're one of the most stubborn people I've ever met."

"Hey!" I frowned "You're one to talk! Besides, I prefer the term 'argumentative.'"

He nodded. "Well, yeah. That too. But you—" Derek's mouth snapped shut and he sat up. His face changed slightly; closed off, maybe, and he looked away from the table.

Angie approached with our plates. "Here we go."

Derek and I sat uncomfortably as she placed our food in their appropriate spots. Everything looked delicious, and I know Derek thought so too by the way he eyed his sandwich.

Angie gave us a grin as she patted her apron. "There. Well… anything else?"

Neither of us spoke.

"No," I said, "I guess that's it. Thank you."

"Okay, let me know if you need anything." She paused for another moment to allow us to change our minds before she walked away.

Silence grew between us. We were interrupted in the middle of what turned out to be a pretty intense conversation, and it for once it hadn't involved questions or mistrust or accusations. It was real and it felt necessary. Like an important milestone that now seemed impossible to reach.

Derek took a bite of his sandwich. "Sweet," He commented, though it didn't exactly feel like a compliment, and I thought of how salty the rations had been.

Without commenting, I pushed the saltshaker at him and watched him sprinkle it over his sweet potatoes. Just when I think I have him figured out, he goes and does something unexpected. I sighed.

Eventually I just lost myself in my own plate. The food was perfect, as usual, but I might be biased. It wasn't too greasy or dry; it was hot but not scalding. The coleslaw had just the right amount of bite to it and I thought that Derek didn't know what he was missing as I munched on it contentedly.

Neither of us attempted to broach the subject again.

"You can go ahead to the warehouse," Derek told me, once we were finished and standing outside the diner.

I hadn't been aware there was an alternative. I frowned at him. "What about you?"

"I've got to go take care of something."

"That's vague." I crossed my arms. "Does this mysterious task effect me in any way?"

Derek shifted impatiently. "No."

After a moment, I shrugged. "Fine."

Without commenting further, I turned to stomp down the sidewalk. I could still sense his gaze on my back, as though he wasn't quite finished with the conversation, but I knew he wouldn't volunteer any more information just from the way he dismissed me so casually.

"I'll be back by sundown!" He called, and I knew he felt the need to clarify that we would still be training. "We've got a lot of work to make up for!"

"Whatever!" I snapped loudly, and didn't bother to turn around as I waved a hand. "Go away!"

I could feel his temper spike from across the street, and I smirked to myself. But when I looked over my shoulder, he'd already gone.

xxx

Being in the depot alone was weird. I hadn't realized it before, but I could always hear the steady beat of Derek's heart before and it had given me some sort of reassurance. Without it this place just felt… lonely.

Luckily, I'm an expert at killing time. Seriously, if there were a career for how to procrastinate or something, I'd be the groundbreaking figure that shot straight to the top. Unfortunately, this is reality, and that option doesn't exist, so I focused my energy on ridding the whole place of those horrifying Most Repulsive Excrements, or as Derek called them, MREs.

There was an unjustifiable amount of them crammed into the cooler. I don't know how I didn't notice them before when I found the water bottles. Oh wait, yes I do. They're colorless and plain and they would blend in to any background. They camouflage themselves in ways that completely misrepresent the terror that lies inside.

I stacked them all in a nice pile in the fire pit and prepared to burn them to chunks of indestructible coal. I reached into my pocket for my lighter and frowned once I realized it was gone.

Gone? What kind of smoker carries a pack of cigarettes but no lighter? A woefully unprepared one, that's what. I sighed heavily and tossed the pack of cigarettes beside the lawn chair I had pulled close to enjoy the show before I realized I was missing a lighter.

Surely, somewhere in this huge warehouse, there was something I could use to start a fire. Foils and batteries would even do, I thought.

So I set off for an exploration adventure. I went through the cart and wandered around the perimeter of the obstacle course, giving the punching bags a good slap so that they swung as I passed. There didn't appear to be anything I was missing.

I looked up to gauge the time of day through the dirty windows, but then froze when I saw a room above. It was high up. Very high up. I could see windows that afforded a view of the whole warehouse from within the room. There had to be a way to get to it.

Of course, it made sense if you thought about it. Derek would have needed to be able to see the area from a higher vantage point in order to set up such an elaborate course.

But how to access it? There were those beams that ran all along the top of the warehouse. Slowly, I turned to the large, rusting subway cart behind me and uncrossed my arms.

I approached it and looked at one of the metal pillars that stood beside it. Reaching up to grab the edge of one of the window frames on the cart, I pulled myself up and grabbed the edge of one of the smaller black windows above it. Then I reached across the top and rolled over the side.

It was dusty as hell up here. There were dirt and cobwebs more elaborate than the layout of a city. A whole colony of spiders must have lived here at some point, and I shuddered at the thought.

No matter. I inched along the top, shaking off all the webs along the way. At the very edge of the cart I reached up to the closest beam. My fingers barely brushed the bottom. So I turned, backed up, and took a deep breath as I braced myself.

I took off running and leapt off the edge. I wasn't high enough and I completely missed the beam. I crashed into the pile of crates beside Derek's workout corner and groaned loudly.

"Oh, my body," I wheezed. "I think I broke my body."

Thank _God_ Derek wasn't here to witness that. After brushing myself off, I stretched my limbs and picked my way across the splintered pile of wood. No idea how I'll explain that one to him.

I shrugged it off and climbed back to the top of the cart. This time, I started farther back. When I jumped I reached up with both my hands and caught the beam, swinging forward far enough that my feet could reach the next bar, and I perched between the two with a shaking breath.

"Fuck!" I looked down and saw exactly how far I'd fallen before. A wave of dizziness hit me and I sighed. "Okay, Lainey… get a grip. You can do this! This is good! This is adventure! Do it for the fire. Do it for the fire!"

With renewed vigor, I twisted around until I could tuck my feet under me and perched on top of the beam like Spiderman, squatting with both hands holding on for dear life.

"Yep… you've got this."

Those runs across the bridge in the obstacle course had really come in handy. These beams were way thicker than that bridge, and I found that I passed over it with little trouble. I'd gone and underestimated myself! Shame!

I had a great view of the obstacle course, actually. And I could see everything through new eyes. The corridor wasn't enclosed, as I had originally thought. The walls were just up high and blocked out a lot of light. Looking down at it now I knew that if I stuck to the left side and kept on hand on the wall I'd get out much faster. I might even cut my time some.

I took the opportunity to pick out a few more shortcuts and cheats, and filed that away for later. Derek wouldn't know what hit him.

I continued along the beams, passing over the course until I reached the mysterious room. The windows were old and made to swing either out or in. Placing my hand against the glass, I pushed in until it seemed like there was a big enough gap for me to squeeze through.

I swung my legs over one at a time and ducked in, crouching inside. There was a light over in the corner. This was once an office of some kind, I realized.

There was a desk with a chair, a computer and a bookshelf. To my great surprise, the computer worked. Derek didn't mention he had a computer. That little shit!

I went to sit in the chair and cracked my knuckles. There were no saved files that I could see, and I sighed in disappointment. I flicked the monitor off and sat back in the chair restlessly. This was turning out to be a waste of time.

Right, fire. The drawers were locked. Good ol' Derek, paranoid as they come. I didn't want to break the drawers in case there happened to actually be something worth protecting inside. Instead, I resolved the option to pick them open later—because, you know. Blackmail.

I went to the bookcase and looked the titles over. Absently fluffing up my hair, I bent to squint my eyes at the spines. It all seemed to be old bookkeeping crap, from when the depot was actually a depot. I pulled a binder out that appeared to be an instruction manual of some sort and flipped it open to the covers. There were pictures of engines and most of it went over my head.

Other than books, there was also just a lot of junk. Tools and gizmos that seemed completely useless to me that I'm sure served some sort of relevant purpose in a warehouse that's also a railroad depot. Amongst the crap was a medium-sized, bright blue blowtorch.

Grinning widely, I snatched it up. "Cool," I appreciated as I flicked the flame on. I extinguished it and put my shoulders back.

After that I grew bored of the room and started to leave through the window again when I realized there was a couch. I mean, I had seen it before, but now I'm thinking it would be the perfect spot to sleep at.

Proud that I'd found a little depot house—like a tree house but cooler—I closed the window behind me and returned to the fire pit. The torch served its purpose beautifully, and I sighed contentedly once the packages were melting and popping and crackling from the intense heat and the fire that consumed them.

It sizzled and it smelled awful. The sun had started to set. Back before sundown, my ass, I thought to myself, and despite the stench and the hissing, the flames began to hypnotize me.

I slouched down in my seat and drifted off.

xxx

I awoke at the feeling of something being laid over me. I flinched and started to bat whatever it was away and froze when I saw it was a faded blue blanket.

My head snapped up and Derek was looking down at the fire pit in confusion.

"What did you burn?" He asked, his nose wrinkled in distaste. "It smells like burnt rubber in here."

I paused. "Um… don't worry about it?"

His eyes narrowed and I knew as soon as he turned to me and crossed his arms that I was in trouble. Busted.

I shrank in my seat a little, feigning nonchalance as I mumbled, "Those MREs."

Derek looked down at the singed pile sharply. "Lainey!" He exclaimed. "Why did you do that?"

"You can't eat those things, Derek!" I stood up and let the blanket fall to my feet. "Come on, I'm serious. I wouldn't feed those to my dog!"

"You don't even have a dog!" Derek growled.

"Well I used to! That's not even the point! The point is those are not fit for human consumption! I did you a favor!"

"Yeah?" Derek gave me a dirty look. "Well the next time you're struck with the urge to do me a favor, _don't_."

"Fine." I crossed my arms and made my face that of defiance. "It won't happen again."

He glared down at the burnt contents in the fire and sighed. "What am I supposed to eat now?"

"The diner is twenty-four seven," I told him. "But don't worry about it. I'll go to the store tomorrow."

The statement seemed to surprise him. He looked at me as if to check if I was serious, and then eyed me. "I'll go with you. You're not picking my food out for me."

"Whatever," I shrugged.

He paused to rub his face. "Okay… come on."

"Where are we going?" I asked as he led us to the exit. And not the one that led to the classification yard.

"The gym," He simply stated, holding the door for me.

"Gym?" I snorted. "What's the matter? Losing faith in the efficacy of your obstacle course?"

Derek rolled his eyes. "No."

The night had just fallen. As we walked down the sidewalk, I couldn't help but feel slightly rejuvenated. It was strange but suddenly I was filled with energy. "Then what's up?"

"They have showers," He informed me.

I stopped walking in surprise. "Hey!" I caught up to him. "Wait a minute! I think I'm insulted! Are trying to say that I stink, Hale?"

"No, Lainey," Derek sighed. "You smell fine. I just thought you'd like to have a shower."

Well, now I felt like a jerk. "Oh. Sorry."

"Whatever." He kept quiet as we walked and I put my hands in my pockets.

"You know it's late, right?"

He grunted and we stopped to wait for a light to turn so we could cross. I wondered why he didn't just have us run the roof tops or something else strenuous like that, but then I noticed that he looked tired.

I looked back at the street sign that continued to signal us to wait. "Sooo… won't the gym close soon?"

"It's twenty-four hours."

"Oh."

Silence. Again. Derek seemed deep in thought and I restlessly fidgeted beside him. The light turned and Derek immediately started across the street, leaving me to trail after him.

"That's convenient," I tried, and Derek didn't comment. We passed a restaurant and I watched a child smear his food on the window as we walked by them. The parents immediately scolded him and I looked away. "While we're there, are you going to make me lift more weights? Because my—"

"No."

"Ooookay…"

He looked down the street and started walking closer to me. "Hurry up."

"What's wrong?" I finally demanded, annoyed.

"You burned my food."

But I didn't believe that. Derek wouldn't really let something so trivial bother him. At least, not the Derek I'd come to know.

"I said I was sorry!"

Derek gave me a very wry, very broody expression. "That doesn't make it any less burnt."

"Ugh!" I threw my hands up. "If I had known it was going to make you act like this, I wouldn't have done it! I would have hidden them or something instead."

"But you didn't."

I took a long, lingering look at him, trying to decipher what it was that actually bothered him. "No," I finally said. "Did I mention I was sorry?"

"A few times."

"Well I am!" I gestured widely. "I don't think you fully appreciate how rarely I apologize to people. I don't just hand those out for free, you know. I only say it when I really mean it!"

"Sensible of you."

I scowled at him. "You know what? I thought we had made some progress."

"So did I," He agreed.

"So that's just it? You're back to hating me?"

Derek looked at me. "Hating you?" He looked closely at my face and sighed. "Lainey, just get inside."

"What?"

He pointed at the door. We stood in front of what must have been the gym and there were two revolving doors. "I don't hate you. Now get inside."

All he'd said was that he didn't hate me. So why was I moving so light on my feet? Why did it feel like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders? The guy didn't get down on his knee and propose! He hadn't even said he liked me! He just denied hating me. It doesn't even mean anything.

But it did. It meant that we were… not friends. But not enemies, either. For some reason, it just meant a lot to me to hear him say that. I can't explain it. I don't want to think about it in detail, either.

Derek led us over to a desk, his hand at my back. "She needs to sign up for a membership."

I stiffened when the man behind the desk nodded and began to type out the necessary forms. Derek sensed it and his hand disappeared from my back, his jaw tightening and eyes becoming unreadable.

"Name?"

I peeked at Derek from the corner of my eye, my mind racing for how to get out of this situation without being forced to explain why. "Could we have a minute?"

The man blinked. He glanced at Derek, who seemed equally confused. "Uh… sure."

I grabbed Derek and dragged him to the side. He opened his mouth but I beat him to it. "I can't sign up for a membership!"

"Why not?" He balked, annoyed. "I can pay!"

I clenched my fist to keep from smacking him. "It's not that!"

He put his hands out. "Then what?"

Glancing at the man behind the counter, I pulled Derek even farther away and kept my voice just below a whisper, knowing he could hear me. "They're gonna ask for a driver's license."

"So?" Derek shrugged.

" _So_ , I don't have one."

"Any form of ID should do," He told me. "It's really not a big deal."

"I don't have any ID!"

"Not even a library card?"

This time I did smack him, on the shoulder. " _No!_ Not even a _library_ card! God…"

"Okay, so…" He sighed. "Fine." Derek stepped back and waved at the man. "We'll be back," He told him. "Sorry if we inconvenienced you."

The man waved us off. "S'fine." He put his hand in his chin and turned his attention to his computer, already ignoring us.

"Come on." Derek grabbed me around the arm and hauled me to the doors again. He pushed me outside. "Talk," He demanded, once we were on the sidewalk again.

I threw my arms up. "I just don't have one!"

"You don't have a fake one?"

"What?" I frowned. "No, why? Why would I need one?"

"How do you get alcohol?"

I laughed at him. "Derek," I patronizingly grinned and reached out to pat his cheek. "Oh, Derek."

He shrugged me off. "Don't do that!"

I put my hands up and laughed again. "Okay! Well, I guess now I need one."

"Yes, you do." Derek, for the thousandth time that night, sighed heavily and pinched his nose. "Okay… come on. We'll go in through the back."

"Oooh!" I rubbed my hands together and scurried after him. "Crime! I love it."

"Shut up," Derek told me.

I ignored him. "For the record, I am not your sidekick."

Derek paused from leading me down a side alley to shoot me a confused expression. "What?"

"We are _partners_. This is an equal opportunity, resourceful partnership."

Derek stopped, looked up at a window, and went to stand under it. "Here, I'll give you a boost up."

I took his shoulder and stepped into his cupped hands. As I reached up to prop open a window for the second time that day, Derek made a nose of approval.

"You seem like you've done this before."

I snorted. "Yeah, well, it's not hard when they leave the place unlocked. Do they think they live in a crime-free city?"

"They're probably not too worried about people sneaking in to run on a treadmill."

"Not run on them," I noted. Before I climbed over the ledge of the window I looked down at Derek. "Steal. That equipment is expensive. If the people at The Beacon knew that this place left their shit unlocked, this gym would have a real problem."

"Luckily, it's just us. Now hurry up, you're giving me a cramp."

I _accidentally_ smacked his face with my shoe on the way in, for implying that I'm fat. Especially since he'd made more than one comment about thinking I was too skinny, so I know he was just saying it to annoy me.

I was definitely in some sort of locker room. I could hear music and TVs playing inside, and the sound of people using the equipment echoed from the thick cement walls.

There was a guy sitting on a bench nearby, one sock dangling from his fingers where he'd frozen to gape at me.

I brushed my jacket off. "What?"

He blinked. "Did you just break in?"

I snorted. "No!" Throwing my thumb over my shoulder, I said, "This isn't the front door?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "Okay," He said, pulling on his sock. "I'm going to get someone."

"Ah," I turned to the window as the man quickly strode by some lockers and disappeared through a hallway. "Derek?"

He dropped beside me and I bounced on the balls of my feet impatiently. "What?"

"I think that guy just went to rat us out."

Derek groaned loudly and pinched his nose. "Great! The showers are through there, I'll be right back!" He tapped my shoulder as he jogged to the hall I'd indicated.

"Wait!"

Urgently, he whirled around to snap at me. "What?"

"Are you gonna beat him up? Because maybe I want to come!"

Derek rolled his eyes and grabbed something from his pocket. Flashing his wallet at me, he said, "No, you idiot. I'm not going to 'beat him up'. I'm going to pay him off!"

"Oh," I said, dumbly. I pouted. "All right."

"Go shower!" He fled in pursuit of the socked man and I turned my attention to the half-wall he had indicated.

Rounding the corner, I came up short when I saw another person. He wore a utility belt and stood on a ladder, picking with a screwdriver at something on the wall. It might have been a light fixture.

Suddenly, his hands paused and he slowly looked down at me. We locked eyes.

"Evening," I said, casually.

"This is the men's locker room," He told me, frowning.

"I am a man."

We stared at each other. Finally, he shrugged. "Whatever." He started to pick at the electrical wiring of the fixture again.

I hurried past him and quickly ducked into the first door I saw. It was a long room, with shower stalls to the right and sinks across from them. A couple of the stalls were occupied but no one stood at the sinks to see me enter.

It didn't smell too bad in this part of the gym. The locker rooms smelled, unsurprisingly, like sweat and dirty laundry. The showers smelled like steam and Dial soap.

I brushed a curtain back and stepped into one. Soon enough, I was stripped and sighing under a stream of hot water. Steam curled around my legs as I shook my head under the water.

It felt good to indulge in the relaxing luxury of hot water and free soap. My muscles felt like they'd taken several beatings—which, they had—and by the time I was done, I was practically purring.

Derek leaned against the sinks when I came out. He looked me over and I offered him a blissful smile that he snorted at. "Did you run into anyone else?"

"A janitor, I think." I gestured down the hall and shrugged before Derek could freak out. "But I don't think he really cared?"

Derek nodded. "Okay. Here." He held a towel out. "Did you miss these?"

"Oh," I avoided his gaze as I took the proffered towel. "Apparently."

My clothes clung to my skin, and it was uncomfortable but at the time I hadn't even cared. Now I was slightly embarrassed. My cheeks were pink and I hid under the towel as I scrubbed my dripping hair.

Suddenly, Derek stepped closely in front of me and his hands covered mine, holding the towel to my head. "Hey," He said, to someone I couldn't see.

"Um, hey… What's he doing?"

The guy must have been referring to me. I waited with wide eyes, staring blankly at the towel that Derek held in place. "Drying his hair."

The person paused. "And you're….?"

Derek's grip tightened. "Drying his hair," He growled.

The person snorted. "Alright, dude. Cool."

I listened to the retreating footsteps and when Derek ripped the towel from my head I smirked at him. He seemed somewhat uncomfortable as I beamed at him, enjoying every second of his apparent awkwardness. "Cool, dude."

He rolled his eyes and shoved the towel into my hands, knocking me back a step, and I snickered.

"Let's get out of here."


	8. Chapter 8

I fully expected for Derek to order us to start running the second we stepped foot in the depot, but he didn't.

"Try to get some sleep." Derek's hand touched my shoulder as he pushed me aside to get ahead of me on the stairs. He took every other one and strode across the floor in the direction of the fire pit. "We've got a big day tomorrow."

"What?" I slowly trailed after him, taking the steps one at a time and letting my foot fully touch each one before continuing. Derek had already disappeared but I still spoke to him. "What do you mean?"

His voice was far, but I could hear him. "I mean we've got a lot to do."

It sounded like he was moving something. The closer I got, the easier it was to figure out what he was doing. Derek had grabbed a large, empty barrel and was now disposing of the charred remains of his MREs when I approached. "Like what?"

"You'll see."

"That's it?" I went to sit on a lawn chair and propped my foot up on the barrel as Derek continued to clean out the fire pit. " _You'll see?_ " I imitated his deep voice but made it growlier than his and Derek shot me a glare.

He reached down to smack my foot from the barrel and ignored my loud protest. "Sure, Lainey, get off your feet. You've done a lot today. Don't worry, I've got this."

"What?" I shrugged at him. "You were doing such a good job by yourself! Trust me if I helped I'd just make a mess. Then you'd be mad, and I would say something to make it worse, and we would be fighting again."

Derek sighed loudly and tossed one rather large, disfigured chunk of burnt plastic with way more vigor than was needed. He dusted off his hands and turned to me, his eyes burning into mine with unexpected intensity.

I shifted uncomfortably and resisted the urge to look away. "What?" I asked.

Derek's eyes narrowed. "Can I trust you tomorrow?"

I sat up in my seat. "I don't even know what 'tomorrow' consists of!"

"That doesn't matter! It's a simple question, Lainey. Can I depend on you or not?"

Floundering for a moment, I gestured vaguely. "Well, yeah! I mean, don't expect miracles or anything, Jesus! Why?"

He gave me a wry look and turned away to carry the barrel off. "Just thought we'd clarify that."

"Great," I muttered and slouched down in my chair with my arms crossed. "That wasn't manipulative or anything."

I laid my head back in the lawn chair and closed my eyes. Before Derek came back from… whatever it was he did this afternoon, I had gotten some sleep. It didn't seem to really make much of a difference because I was still exhausted. It was starting to feel like I would always be tired.

"I was thinking—"

Derek's voice scared the shit out of me and I jumped and yelped. His lips were twitching with the effort to keep from smirking, and I scowled at him.

"I was thinking," He continued, graciously turning his eyes away from me to grant me the opportunity to compose myself. I sighed and tried to tuck a tuft of hair behind my ear as I listened. "About your driver's license situation. I think I know a guy."

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow at him and looked at him appraisingly "That's… sort of surprising. I'm surprised. You're just full of secrets, Derek Hale."

He rolled his eyes. "Don't be. Anyways, it shouldn't take but a few days. I'll need your birth certificate."

"What?" I glowered. "Why?"

He turned to look at me, his jaw clenched. "To get your license."

"But _why?_ Isn't he just going to make one from scratch or whatever?"

"This isn't some jerk in his mom's basement. This guy actually _knows_ what he's doing."

"Really?" I tilted my head and rested it on my outstretched fingers in mock interest. "What's that?"

Derek, hearing my condescending tone and sensing my skepticism, gave me his full attention. He sat down on his crate and leaned his elbows on his knees to stare at me as he said, "Well, he's going to have to find a girl about your age to go take the driving tests for you. In order to do that she's going to need two forms of identification—your birth certificate—" He glared at me meaningfully. "And I'll forge a report card from the school for her to use."

"Ooooh!" I shivered with excitement. "This is so crafty. I feel like a spy going undercover!"

"Or a criminal," Derek said, dryly. I nodded thoughtfully. "Oh, that reminds me, when is your birthday?" Derek raised an eyebrow at the unimpressed glare he received. "What?"

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously? I've already told you this!"

"I know, seven weeks away. But what's the actual date?"

"April sixth."

"1993?"

I raised my eyebrows. "Obviously. What if she fails?"

Derek frowned. "Who?"

"The girl! The one who'll have take my test. What if she fails?"

Rolling his eyes, he shook his head. "She's not going to fail."

"But what if she does?"

"She won't," He insisted, and then paused at my stubborn glare. "If she does she'll just keep taking it until she passes, like everybody else."

I blinked. "Oh."

"The reason they do it this way is so that the government will have a real, valid license for you in their databases."

"Wow," I said, quietly. This was pretty huge for me, and I'm not sure that Derek really knew what it meant. If we could pull this off then I wouldn't have to be so damn nervous all the time about not having an identity, because as far as they're concerned, I'll have one.

Derek nodded. "Yeah. Once he has the card he'll scan it, put it into his own systems, replace the picture with yours, and create a new card. It will be identical to the original in every way except there will be a picture of you."

"But won't the state have a different picture on file? They'll show a picture of some five-foot-eight chick weighing in at a buck fifty and when they compare that to my short, scrawny ass I'll be arrested on sight!"

Derek blinked at the picture I'd painted. He frowned. "It won't be an issue."

"What? How?"

"Lainey, these are professionals. They've done it before and as far as I know they've never messed up."

"As far as you _know?"_

Derek gave me a hard look. "Lainey, relax. I trust them."

That shut me up. I lifted my chin and considered him for a moment. He seemed earnest, or at least his piercing glare did, so I shrugged a shoulder. "All right," I agreed, which he must have approved of because he stopped glaring. "There's just one thing."

Derek raised an eyebrow.

"I… can't have my name on that license. Campbell? It can't be on there."

"What?" He shook his head. "Why not?"

"Because!" I insisted. It felt impossible, for some reason, to tell Derek the truth. To admit to him that my dad had done yet another terrible, heartless thing to me, with no apology or explanation. I couldn't reveal that much of myself this soon. He already knew so much. "Trust me, all right? Campbell can't be on that license. Or else this whole thing will fall apart."

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose. After a long moment, he looked up at me again. "Are you here illegally or something?"

I smirked widely. "Yeah, Derek. I'm actually the long, lost princess of an obscure country in the Central Pacific, but some warlords put a hit on my whole family when I was three years old and we were forced to flee our kingdom. If they ever find out where I'm at, this whole city would be at risk."

Derek stared at me, unimpressed. "Fine," he growled. "Don't tell me. I'm assuming this means you'll need a different birth certificate?"

Awkwardly, I shrugged and looked away. "Your assumption would be correct," I said, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity.

Derek sighed heavily and rubbed his face. "Okay. What do you want your name to be?"

I stared down at my feet and found that I couldn't think of anything. Quietly, I said, "Whatever. Anything. I don't care, just not something ridiculously hard to spell. It would be awkward if I couldn't spell my own last name."

Derek seemed to think about it for a long moment. "Okay," He said, apparently deciding on something. "I'll take care of it."

I nodded and he hesitated before he stood up and started to leave. At the last second I reached out and grabbed his wrist as he passed. Derek looked down at me but I stared at the crate he'd vacated. "Just…" I looked up at him. "Thank you."

He frowned at the sincerity in my voice and his lips pressed into a flat line. Derek nodded and I let go of his wrist and stood from the lawn chair so I didn't have to look at him anymore, feeling awkward and restless.

Far off overhead, one of the beams I'd been climbing on earlier suddenly fell and crashed into part of the obstacle course.

I covered my mouth to keep from making any sort of noise as Derek looked on, bewildered, and then turned to frown at me. "Ummm," I said, allowing my amusement to shine through in that statement. "That was weird."

Derek started off in the direction of the fallen beam. "I don't know why… maybe it's that guilty look on your face, but I feel like you had something to do with that."

"What?" I squeaked. "Derek, I was right next to you the whole time! What could I have possibly done to cause that?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Hm." He squinted at me doubtfully. "I'm going to make sure it didn't do too much damage."

I cleared my throat to get rid of the laugh that wanted to escape and nodded. "Yes," I teased. "That would be a shame."

As Derek walked off, he called over his shoulder. "If anything is broken you're going to have to fix it!"

"ME?" I threw my hands up. "That's ridiculous!"

There was no response from Derek and I growled and stomped my foot. Clenching my fists, I turned my attention to the fire pit. Or, more specifically, to the blowtorch.

I gasped. Had he noticed that? He must have! How could he have missed it? It was right under my chair! Well, maybe he didn't, since I was sitting in it the whole time. Yeah, we'll go with that. He didn't notice it.

Hurriedly, I snatched it out from under the chair and went to my suitcase. I kicked the suitcase on its side, popped it open, and flung the blowtorch inside. I was holding a pair of sweatpants in my hands and debating whether to go ahead and strip down right there when Derek's voice startled me from behind.

"The beam crushed the dodging panels."

I whirled around and clutched my racing heart. "Jesus!" I gasped, and then frowned when what he said registered. "Wow, really?"

Derek crossed his arms. "I hope you know how to repair crumbled cement."

I scoffed. "Repair it? I could build something better!"

He looked amused. His eyes went from the sweatpants in my hands, down to my feet, and back up. He seemed to barely suppress a smirk. "Sure," He patronized. "You do that."

My fists clenched. "I hate it when you do that!"

He shrugged insincerely. "I expect it to be fixed in two days."

"You kidding?" I boasted. "I'll show you an obstacle. Expect fire. Fire and water. And wind! All of the elements! With luck, we'll find the next Avatar in the betas you choose."

He rolled his eyes. "Okay. Have you decided where to sleep?"

"Oh," I turned to the lawn chairs and fire pit awkwardly. "Uh…." Randomly, I pointed to a chair. "That one."

Derek raised his eyebrows. "Really? You're staying?"

I stared at it for a moment before looking back at him. "I changed my mind," I decided. "Not that chair. Maybe the tunnel in the obstacle course? That would be cozy."

Derek sighed loudly. "The cart has several seats that would be better than these chairs."

"Oh…" Awkwardly, I scratched the back of my neck. "Isn't that where you sleep?"

He frowned. "So?"

"So…" I grinned wickedly and crossed my arms. "Sleepover?"

Derek scoffed. "Don't make me change my mind."

I put my hands up and turned around to back towards the cart. "I hope you don't mind snoring," I grinned. "I can rattle even the sturdiest of windows."

Derek put his face in his hand. "Oh, my god."

"Kidding! I'm kidding." After I hopped into the cart I stopped to poke my head back out. "No I'm not. I really do snore."

"Cute." Derek stopped right at the foot of the cart and glared up at me. "Move."

I stepped in to the cart and surveyed the seats. Derek stepped into the doorway and immediately reached up to the top of the doorframe. I watched as he lifted himself up and started doing pull ups.

"Ugh, really?" I curled my nose up. "You just keep going, don't you? Like the world's most buff, masculine energizer bunny."

"You're lucky I'm not making you do any," He puffed. "You slacked off today."

"Oh yeah? I'll take that as a personal challenge. The gauntlet is thrown!"

Derek watched, amused, as I hopped up to grab the top of the doorframe opposite him and hung for a second watching him. I waited for him to drop down and then pulled up at the same second he did. And so, the unofficial competition began.

"Really?" Derek dryly said, watching me lift in time with him. "You're so childish."

"Only around you," I admitted. "But you won't be saying that when I win."

Derek chuckled. "That's funny."

"I'm hilarious! I'm glad you're finally realizing that."

"Shut up." He looked away and focused on picking up speed. He was testing me.

Stubbornly, I kept pace with him. After the next fifty reps, my arms started to burn and I really wanted to slow down. But Derek just kept going, like some sort of bionic machine.

"This," I puffed. "Is easy! I could do this all day!"

Derek laughed at me and abruptly slowed his reps. I gasped loudly at the unexpected flair of pain through my forearms, biceps and shoulders when I was forced to slow down and lift my body at an agonizing pace. "What was that?" He teased.

"All… Day…" I ground out through clenched teeth. "God!"

"Give it up, Campbell." Derek barely sounded winded, which just irritated me. "You're going to hurt yourself."

Taking a large breath, I swung my legs back. Derek stopped to gawk at me as I swung back and forth a couple times, gaining some momentum. "What are you doi—"

I flung myself forward and let go of the top of the door, tackling Derek from the door. We crashed into the floor and rolled a couple of feet. Derek groaned and I pushed myself off to lie on the floor and pant, my hand falling over on the ground. "Ugh," I grunted. "You… were saying?"

Suddenly, Derek's hand connected painfully with my stomach. I grunted and reflexively sat up to clutch at it, coughing. "Don't do that again," He told me, flatly.

"No… problem…" I gasped. "God! That hurt!"

Derek picked himself off the ground. "Good!"

I scowled at him but he was already walking away. "Aw, don't be mad!" I called. "Derek, you were taunting me!"

He ducked into the cart. I caught my breath and then sat up on shaking legs. Taking my time, I limped into the cart. I stopped in the doorway and clutched at my arm. "Ow," I lamely said. Derek was lying down on his seat. He looked… strange in such a leisurely, casual position. "Yeah," I admitted. "Not my best idea."

Derek grunted. "Lay down."

I smirked and waggled my eyebrows at him. "Wanna cuddle?"

Derek scoffed and then chuckled. He rubbed his jaw, scratching at his stubble with a yawn. "Lainey… just go to sleep."

I went to retrieve my sweat pants I'd flung on the floor. "No peeking," I told him.

"What?" Derek lifted his head and then paused when he saw me unbuttoning my pants. "Seriously?" He asked, his voice flat as he glared at me. "You could step outside."

I dropped my pants and kicked them aside with a shrug and stood there in my underwear. "Why? Does this bother you?"

"I thought it would bother you."

I bent over to pull on my sweat pants. "I'm not bothered."

Derek snorted. "Obviously."

I smirked at him and tugged the strings on the waist tight. "Enjoy the show?"

He raised an eyebrow at me. I raised mine back and put my hands on my hips. Sighing, he laid his head back and turned over. "We've got to get up in four hours," He told me. "Lots to do tomorrow."

I sighed heavily and climbed onto the seat. "Fantastic."

It grew quiet and I closed my eyes and listened to the steady beat of Derek's heart. I would venture to say that I felt comfortable around him now. I mean, he could definitely make me angry, and he made me nervous a lot, but at least I wasn't walking on eggshells around him anymore.

"I'm buying us a bunch of pillows at the store tomorrow," I muttered.

"Shhhhh." Derek turned over and buried his face into the seat. "Go to sleep."

xxx

It felt like my eyes were closed for all of five minutes before Derek was nudging me awake. I smacked his hand like the top of an alarm clock. "Ten minutes!"

"No," Derek prodded my shoulder again. "You said that already."

"Well then give me ten minutes!"

"I did," He growled, and grabbed my arm to haul me up. I gasped and he let me fall back in an upright position to gaze at him blearily. "Twenty minutes ago."

Once what he said processed in my drowsy mind, I frowned. "…Oh."

"Yeah."

"You let me sleep an extra twenty minutes?" I flashed in an overly sweet grin. "Derek, does this mean you like me?"

He shoved me back over so hard I yelped and had to fling my legs up to keep from tumbling into the floor of the cart.

"Shit!"

"I'll be at the top of the stairs, and if you aren't there in five minutes I'm going to come back and make you do five hundred sit ups before we run."

I'd never gotten out of bed so fast. He hadn't even stepped foot off the cart and I was scrambling past him to run to my suitcase. Derek laughed as I tripped and fell.

The beams overhead spun and I took a moment to catch my breath. Derek's face appeared in my vision and he was grinning widely, looking very satisfied. He crossed his arms. "Worth the extra twenty minutes," He smugly informed me.

"Not my most graceful moment," I admitted, with an uncharacteristic grin. "But I think that's the almost the first time you've ever laughed at me. How sadistic of you, Derek."

He rolled his eyes. "Okay. The moment is over. Get up."

After I was dressed, we set off outside. The sun hadn't even properly risen yet, but running with any amount of sun to change the sky felt weird and just… wrong. It was cloudy and overcast as always, so it's not like there was any additional warmth, and Derek allowed one hour of running laps through the classification yard. He also focused on having me zip through the broken down carts on the tracks, trying to decrease my time with each pass.

I didn't run the obstacle course today and whether that was because of the broken section or because he apparently had other plans for us, I couldn't be sure.

"Stand over there," Derek told me, pointing to the whitest, cleanest wall in the depot.

"You couldn't have taken this picture before the run?" I grumbled, irritably.

"You look fine," He told me. Derek lifted the phone and the flash blinded me momentarily. "Besides, everyone has bad driver's license pictures."

"Really? Can I see yours?" I grinned widely.

Derek rolled his eyes. "No."

"Aww, why not?"

"Because you can't. And it had to be today, anyways. Before you fully shift. After the first full moon, your eyes will be able to do this," He flashed his red eyes at me and my jaw dropped in excitement. "Except not red."

"Really? What color?" I eagerly walked over to him and grabbed his arm to look at the picture. "Whoa! I look awful!"

"Yellow." He clicked the sleep button on his phone and the screen went black. "No, you don't. Now come on."

"So my eyes will always be yellow, or what?"

Derek snorted and held the door open for me. "No. Only if you're shifting."

"Then why don't you shift every time your eyes go red?"

Derek sighed loudly and a muscle in his jaw jumped. "Because I have control," He said through his teeth, which was slightly ironic. "The reason I couldn't have taken your picture after you shifted is because once you fully transform, your eyes will always flash back in pictures."

"Always?" I grimaced. "Like red eye?"

"No, like an animal."

"Like a fucking possum?"

"More like a dog," He corrected, and hesitantly gave a single nod. "But, yes."

"If that's true, how did you get your picture for your license? Didn't they reflect?"

Derek seemed hesitant to admit it, but he said, "I squinted."

I threw my head back and laughed. "Oh, that's amazing! Please, can I see your license? Please?"

He pushed me away when I tried to reach for his pockets. "No! Lainey! Stop!"

"Oh, fine!" I finally withdrew and pouted, kicking at the sidewalk as we walked.

It was close to nine in the morning as we walked along the street in fresh clothes. I heard a set of keys in Derek's hand jangle and stopped short. Derek didn't notice immediately and when he did he frowned.

"What now?"

"You have a car?" I gaped. "Where?"

"It's a couple blocks over, in a parking garage."

"A parking garage!"

"Yes. It's this building with multiple levels that you can leave your car in—"

"Ha ha!" I snapped, irritated. "Why haven't we used it yet? Why didn't we use it to go to the gym?"

"Because the gym is only three blocks away?" He scrunched his face and leaned closer to fully read my expression. Confused, he clutched his keys tightly. "Why are you so bothered about this?"

"Because you have a _secret_ car! Like Batman!"

Sounding tired and exasperated, he said, "It wasn't secret, Lainey, it just never came up."

"Derek, we are a pack now. That means if you have cool gadgets you have to tell me! What if there was an emergency?"

"An emergency that required you to drive my car?"

"Yes!"

"And what might that be?"

I threw my hands up. "I don't know! The rapture! A flood! Who cares!?"

Confused, he shook his head at me. "How would a car help in either of those scenarios?"

"AGH!" I threw my hands up again and stomped down the sidewalk. "Forget it! Let's go get this Mysterious Car so we can do this Mysterious Task that's apparently going to take All Day."

Derek fell into step beside me. "For the record, you can't drive my car until you have a license."

I was surprised that he'd let me drive at all. "Seriously? Aren't guys supposed to be obsessively protective over their cars?"

He shrugged. "We both know you have good reflexes, I can teach you, and my car runs perfectly. There isn't really much else to worry about."

I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. "Hell yeah!"

"Not for another few days, at least."

"Sure, sure," I waved off. "Hey, is that the parking garage?"

Derek and I headed inside the aforementioned building, and I thought of every movie scene that had ever used a parking garage as its settings. Characters were always getting mugged, stabbed or raped in these types of places, and it wasn't hard to see why.

None of that mattered when Derek walked up to the darkest, sleekest car on the floor. "Holy shit! A Camaro?!" I whistled. "Wait—Derek… Are you… rich?"

He gave me a withering glare. "Just get in the car, Lainey."

"It's so shiny!" I exclaimed. Derek allowed me to ooh and ah for another few seconds before he put an end to it and made me climb in the passenger seat. "What, no dice in the mirror?"

He snorted. " _Definitely_ not."

I watched every move he made as he started the car and shifted gears, turning around in the nice leather seats to watch as he backed up.

Sounding somewhere between amused and annoyed, he said, "Have you never been in a car before?"

"It's been a while," I conceded as I turned forward. I leaned down to inspect the radio. "What's this do?"

"That's for the—" He stopped when music flicked on and I grinned widely. He raised an eyebrow and I turned to a good channel, and for a brief moment there was no hostility between us. No drama, no werewolf business, no orders about training.

It was the first time I rode in Derek's car and I already knew I was in love. The idea of driving it had me practically vibrating in the seat. It must have both surprised and pleased Derek to see someone so impressed with his vehicle, which I knew no matter what he said he had to be very proud of, and instead of yapping at me to keep my hands to myself and sit still like I'd imagined, he was pointing out different features for me to try.

I saw a different side of Derek, then. My overall impression of him shifted, and he was someone new to me by the time we pulled up at a grocery store. He wasn't just Derek the alpha, or Derek the stubborn asshole, or even Derek the guy who barely tolerated me and made me nervous.

I was excited and he was Derek, the guy who was willing to indulge me as he told me to push the button near the bottom of the dash. He smirked crookedly when I gasped at the leather seats that grew warm under us, a dimple forming at one corner of his mouth.

The moment was destined to end, of course, and the grocery store was a whole new type of strange experience. For some reason, standing with Derek in the produce section felt as strange as it would to stand in line with a superhero at the DMV. He was so big and he never quite seemed to feel comfortable in public. Not that he looked uncomfortable, per se, quite the contrary. To people who didn't know him, he looked intimidating. His presence was imposing but he was polite to pretty much everyone he encountered.

Everywhere he went he kept his back to the wall and an eye on the closest exit. I could feel him monitoring the movements of the woman next to me as she reached over to grab a sack of potatoes. He was subtle about it, and she probably had no idea he was doing it, but I knew. And I couldn't stop noticing.

"Derek," I said, as subtly as I could, trying to remain casual. "Unclench. You're making me nervous."

He scanned the other shoppers in the vicinity. "I don't want to take too long here. Let's hurry. Grab those potatoes, would you?"

"Potatoes?" I scoffed. "What are you gonna do with those?"

He gave me a dry, sarcastic expression. "Do I really need to explain this to you?"

I smirked. "Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Got it."

The potatoes thudded as they hit the bottom of the cart and Derek grabbed my shoulders and physically moved me.

"Hey!" I cried, as he shoved me aside to take over steering the cart. "Rude!"

"Too slow," He grumbled. "What's next?"

"I don't know, whatever, I guess. How are you even going to cook the potatoes?"

"Are you still stuck on those?" Derek rolled his eyes. "Foil is on the list."

"List?"

Derek and I gave each other identically critical expressions. "You don't have a list?" He asked me.

"You do?"

We stared at each other for another second before Derek broke away and started toward the next thing on his 'list'. "You've got a potato, you've got a fire," He explained, apparently determined to prove his logic to me. "You've got foil. You wrap the potato in the foil. You bake the potato. Any more questions?"

"I mean, lots. Don't you need to set the potato above the fire? Otherwise won't it just burn? What about cheese? What about sour cream? What about the _butter_ , Derek? What's a baked potato without butter?"

"I don't know," He rolled his eyes and threw something else into the cart. "Healthier?"

I grinned. "You're kind of funny, you know that?"

"Thanks," He said, dryly. "Anything you're dying to have at the depot or are you pretty much determined to go to the diner for every meal?"

I brushed off his passive aggressive dig at my favorite diner and drew my shoulders back. "Pillows."

Derek nodded and we continued to make our way through the store.

After another fifteen minutes of bickering about what foods to purchase, we cut across the store to the furniture section to look at the pillows.

"Really? Do you really need _six_ pillows?"

"Yes. For lumbar support," I shrugged. "And a fort."

"No forts."

"Screw off!" I frowned and clutched the pillows protectively to my chest, their plastic coverings squeaking. "You can't tell me how to use my pillows!"

"Three pillows," He told me, grabbing onto one of them.

I gasped and twisted to try and rip it out of his grasp. "Six!"

"Four."

"Six!"

"Five, final offer."

"Six! Two of them are for you, anyways."

He paused and looked at the pillows. "Six."

"Done!" I grinned widely as I jammed the pillows into the cart over the groceries.

"Watch the bread!"

"Oh, my god," I rolled my eyes. "Relax, Derek—"

"Lainey? Zat you?"

Derek and I both whipped around at the unexpected voice. At the end of the aisle stood an old man, his hair white and curly where it poked from under his fedora hat, and he had an argyle sweater vest on over his shirt and scuffed, worn leather shoes. In his cart were several pots of green plants and vibrantly colored flowers and bags of soil.

"Lainey Campbell?" He asked again, in that same foreign accent.

Derek moved closer to me.

"Nope," I said, popping the p.

"Hah!" He barked. "Zats Lainey Campbell, all right. She zinks she is clever."

"Sounds like a pill."

Derek, sensing that I knew the old man, backed off slightly despite his apparent confusion and he listened to the proceedings closely.

"Vhere is your father? He owes me zirty dollars and he stole my favorite flask," He grumbled, the word flask sounding more like _vlesk_ when it came from him.

"Sounds about right," I muttered, and turned away from the cart to approach the man with a hand on my hip. "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him if I were you, Arnold, unless you're ready to die. Even if Ray weren't in prison you'd never see that money." I hated to clean up one of Ray's messes for him, but I liked Arnold. I sighed. "…But I can stop home and look for a flask."

"Such a good daughter," Arnold declared in his gravelly, accented voice. "Vould you like a candy?"

"What? Oh," I held my hand out and Arnold deposited a caramel into my palm. "Thanks."

He popped one into his mouth. "Hmm. Zis man does not deserve such a good daughter. He is a poor father; he gave your dog away."

"Yes! Twinkie!" I paused to fill Derek in. "When I was nine years old, I took in this stray dog from the street. He was short, yellow and fat, so I named him Twinkie, and I had him for a really long time and Ray didn't even notice until one day Twinkie killed a mole in the back yard and left it in the bathroom where Ray found it."

"He vas going to train him for ze fighting," Arnold waved a gnarled hand at Derek. "Do you know zis dog fighting? Zer is money in zis. I used to do zis for living. I told him, I said, 'zis dog is too fat for fighting. Ze ozer dogs vill destroy zis dog.' Ray did not care. He thought if dog can kill mole, dog could kill dogs. Zis is not how it vorks, you know?"

Derek stared, speechless, and I gestured at him to speak. "What? Oh." Unsure of what to say, he nodded.

Arnold nodded and looked to me. "Lainey cried ze whole time. It vas… sad. Hard to vatch. I paid Ray fifty dollars for ze dog so ze dog vould live and ze child vould stop her crying. It is good to see you now, Lainey. You look happy." _Heppy_ , it sounded like.

I was blushing and cleared my throat. "Yeah, so, how is that little Debbie cake?"

"Daagh!" Arnold broke into a wet, sputtering cough, so I asked him to repeat himself. "Dead, ze dog is dead."

I paled. "W-What?"

"Yes," Arnold waved again. "He had ze tumors. Surgery is expensive. I shot him in ze head before Christmas. So sorry. Have another caramel."

"No! Twinkie can't be dead!" I said, shrugging off the candy and throwing my hands out. " _Nooo!_ Wait, he had a tumor?"

"Yes, like you," Arnold nodded, and I flinched. He didn't even seem to notice. "But more of zem. You and dog, you vere alvays two peas in pod, yes? He vas old, Lainey. He could barely valk. It vas mercy killing. I made sure to get between ze eyes. No pain."

I blinked rapidly as I grappled with the news.

Arnold leaned in with a low voice, his lungs shuddering with phlegm. "I like you, Lainey. You are a good daughter. I could do ze same for you, as I did for Twinkie vhen your time comes, yes?"

"What?" I jerked back in surprise and Arnold stared at me with a grave expression. "No! No, no that's okay, Mr. Orlov!"

"Zer is one more zing." Arnold leaned against his cart, apparently growing tired of standing in the middle of an aisle chitchatting for so long. "He is buried in a clearing behind my house. You know zis clearing, yes?"

I thought of the place he spoke of and nodded. "With the old beater truck?"

Arnold pointed at me. "Yes! Zis is exactly ze place. He vaits for your visit, I zink."

My heart sank and I looked down at my shoes. As he pushed his cart away, one of the wheels on his cart ticked sporadically.

"Stop by if you find my flask! It is antique. Very valuable."

For a long moment neither Derek or I moved. We just stood, stunned, in the middle of the aisle with the pillows and bedding.

Derek spoke first. "What just happened?"

I looked at him. "My dog died! Before _Christmas?_ He had a tumor! Multiple tumors!"

"That man just offered to shoot you, and you're focused on a dog?"

"He was my _dog_ , Derek!" I threw the caramel Arnold gave me into a stack of pillows and it bounced off and slid across the floor under the shelves. "Oh my god! Fuck I'm depressed now. Fucking Twinkie!"

Derek pushed the cart forward. "Let's go. Before you see another person you know."

* * *

 _Thank you for all the reviews! Keep them coming, my lovelies. There's more to come very, very soon. Isaac will be introduced next chapter!_


	9. Chapter 9

The news about Twinkie put me in a funk. Turns out that the school was next on the agenda. It took some convincing but Derek went inside while I waited in the car. I told him it was to avoid running in to anyone else that might know me, or worse, Ray, and that was a good enough excuse for him. I think Arnold really turned him off of any people from my past.

In reality I just hated that school. There were no good memories there and no faces I wanted to ever see again. The only good thing I remember about the place were the vending machines stocked with energy drinks and from what I've heard over the years they got rid of those, too. Something about health hazards or equally boring like that.

It really didn't take too long, I suppose, considering what I overheard in the school. Derek slammed the door behind him and sat in the seat for a few moments, lost in thought with a deep frown on his face.

"So… who's Jackson?" I asked, and Derek eyes snapped to mine.

"You could hear that?"

I raised an eyebrow at him.

Derek paused and looked away grudgingly, glaring at the steering wheel. "He's… not our problem."

"Well, he _sounded_ like an asshole."

Derek's eyes lost some of their tightness and his lips twitched. He reached down to start the car. "He is."

I looked out the window at the parking lot, scanning the cars in the row beside us. "He's going to reject the bite, isn't he? Like Kelsey did."

There wasn't an immediate response and I didn't turn to look at him. Derek was quiet as he admitted, "I don't know."

He sounded far from happy about it. Troubled, would be a good word to describe it, though it might have been tinged in sadness and I liked to think he was truly remorseful about Kelsey. This was shaping up to be a really sad day.

The parking lot moved backwards as Derek reversed.

"I want to make another stop."

He seemed exasperated and shot me an annoyed glare. Before he could reject it, I interrupted.

"Please," I added. "I'll do it later if I have to, after we're back at the depot. It's for Arnold. I know you don't understand, but I owe him a lot for taking in Twinkie like he did. He didn't have to do that. Anyways, he says that Ray stole his flask, and I want to try and find it before… it's no longer an option."

Derek was quiet as he processed this information. He guided the car out of the parking lot and we lingered at the road. "I get it. Which way?"

I sighed and sank lower in my seat. "Right, heading back in to town."

xxx

Derek stared up at the meager two-story house. I tried to see what he did, but all I could see were the dark, empty windows and the familiar shape of our front porch. I had a flashback of Kelsey pushing her legs across those steps in an effort to bar me from leaving.

"You're selling your house?" Derek asked, indicating the sign in the yard.

"Yeesh, they move fast," I muttered. "Not me. Not my dad, either. Try the bank, I guess. Or the government. I'm not totally sure. _Someone_. Sheriff warned me about it, but now that I'm thinking about it I have no idea how he'd know."

Derek pointed up at the front door. "See that?"

It was an eviction notice. I scoffed. "Can they do that? Have an eviction notice while they also put the sale sign in the yard?"

"They can do whatever now. It looks like your dad doesn't own it anymore. If your dad didn't rent then there's no property manager or landlord. Sheriff Stilinski would've had to post that sign."

I grumbled low in my throat. "Bet he loved doing that."

Derek raised an eyebrow at me. "He seems to, yes."

I returned his look of surprise and realized he must have some experience with this sort of thing in order for him to be so educated on it. "Sheriff kick you out of your house too?"

Dark amusement danced across his features, and Derek's eyes glittered with something like pain when he looked up at my house. "It's his job. That's what he said to me about it. But... it doesn't make it feel any less personal, does it?" I shook my head and Derek gestured up to the door. "Are we going in, or what?"

"I don't know, I was having fun bonding."

He shoved my shoulder and I stumbled over the grass in my lawn. "Go," he said, and I didn't have to look to know he rolled his eyes.

It took me a minute to get the door open. Derek wanted to just bust the lock but I was able to find a spare key I'd stashed between the mailbox and the wall by the front door.

"Castillo de las Campbells," I presented with a flourish as we entered. "I was raised in this dump along with numerous generations of rats and cockroaches. They've got their own little feud going on, like Hatfield and McCoy, something about a block of cheese from the early nineties. They keep to themselves but if I were you I'd stay out of the kitchen. They _will_ fight you."

Derek rolled his eyes and I snickered at my own jokes. "That's disgusting."

"Yes it is… Now, where to start, where to start…" I looked around the living room. "If I were Ray, where would I keep an old, expensive flask?… Oh," I reached out and grabbed Derek's shoulder as if he'd been participating in the conversation. I nodded up at him. "I know! Come on. Upstairs."

I dragged him through the messy living room and down the hall to the stairs. I would be embarrassed about the state of disarray, but none of it was my fault. I took no responsibility and therefore refused to feel any shame for the clutter.

"One of Ray's infamous rips," I found myself explaining, as Derek awkwardly waited in the hall for me to pull down the stairs to the attic. "Sometimes he thinks he loses things. He'll tear the whole house apart to find it. Last time I didn't feel like picking up after him. Hold your breath, Derek, it's about to get dusty."

His eyes were wide and unsure until I cracked a smirk at him. He rolled his eyes. "Can we just hurry this up? I do have other things to do today, you know."

"All right, all right, this way…"

"Just gotta step around the… thing, here…" I showed him how I stepped around the strange, boxy contraption that has always been too heavy for me to move when I was younger—and now I didn't care anymore.

"What is that? It has a horn."

I chuckled and shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Okay…" Derek muttered, coming to join my side.

Now that I actually stood there, I could only cover my mouth with my hand and look helplessly at the piles of junk. "Hmm." I turned to the corner where the suitcase had been. "Hmm? Hmmmmm….."

I turned to a large wardrobe that was buried behind a mound of boxes.

"There! Let's start there."

"This is going to take longer than I realized," Derek muttered. He watched as I went to the boxes and dug through their contents. "How do you even know it'll be up here?"

"I don't. It could really be anywhere. But this is where Ray puts things he later intends to sell."

"Is that a mannequin? Who does he think is going to buy a mannequin?"

"Um, a store? Someone who makes clothes? Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs?" I shrugged. "I don't really know. I don't apply logic anywhere near Ray. It's like putting a candle near a balloon of hydrogen. That's how the Hindenburg crashed."

"Uh—close enough…" Derek muttered, apparently deciding not to correct my proclamation about how the Hindenburg crashed, which I'm sure he knew all the details of since that just seemed like the sort of thing he'd know. Derek surveyed the attic again. "Lainey, I think your dad has a problem."

I barked out a loud laugh. "Oh, just one?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry."

I stopped pawing through the third box to look at Derek in surprise. "What? Why?"

He gestured to the attic. "Because this shouldn't have been your life."

My jaw clenched. "Don't do that. We don't judge each other, all right? I'm sure there are plenty of things I could criticize about you but I won't if you won't."

Derek hesitated and I could see that he was thinking of the things he'd done that I might judge poorly. He nodded.

"Can you start looking over there? This would go faster if we both searched."

He sighed loudly. "What does the flask look like?"

"Like a flask," I grumbled. "I don't know. Use your imagination."

"That's not helpful."

"Neither are the multitude of questions you're hitting me with!"

"Oh, is that annoying?" Derek dropped something to the ground as he opened a trunk and began sort through the contents. "Now you know how I feel."

"Touché."

He made a tolerant noise. "Thirty minutes," He decided. "And we're leaving. You can tell Arnold you tried."

"More than I'd hoped for."

We were silent as we searched and after a long moment I felt the need to fill it.

"So… earlier you said something about Sheriff evicting you from your house. Was that true?"

Derek dropped a dress shoe and it thudded noisily across the wooden floors. He sighed loudly. "Not in the literal sense. The health department condemned it, and the government reclaimed it, and Sheriff posted a no trespassing sign."

"Oh, because…" I was careful to keep a neutral tone and didn't stop searching as I said, "Because it was burned, right?"

I saw him nod from the corner of my eye. He rested his fists against the top of the pile he had moved to, having finished with the trunk, and the muscles in his arms bulged tightly as he gathered patience. "Don't pretend you don't already know."

"Actually, no disrespect, but I'm not going to pretend to know a thing about it," I countered. "Derek, I have no _idea_ what actually happened. How would I? The papers are no more reliable than the gossip that runs through this city like a cancer. I'm not going to assume to know a damn thing!"

He apparently didn't expect that and when he turned to look at me, his guarded expression melted to a less hostile one. "Kelsey seemed to know a great deal," He tried, testing me.

I shrugged a shoulder. "Kelsey and I didn't have that type of relationship. I mean, I know you have to wonder why I wasn't more… distraught or whatever about her dying. It's because the truth is, we weren't that close."

Derek hadn't expected any of this. It was clear just by the way he stood clutching a technicolor, ugly dress to his chest without even noticing. "I didn't know that."

I turned away. "There's a lot we don't know about each other."

"I guess so."

We didn't speak again for the next twenty minutes. Not until Derek called my name. I hadn't gotten too much deeper into the clutter and I had a feeling if I really wanted to make a thorough search, I'd have to either spend a whole day here by myself or I'd have to make multiple trips. It didn't really seem worth it.

"Lainey," Derek called.

I held the fishing pole I'd found by the handle and turned. When I saw what he held, I fumbled and almost dropped the damned thing. "Shit! Don't touch that!"

He held the urn. It was clear of cobwebs and dust, which meant he must have cleared it off before bringing my attention to the matter. "Who is this?" Not what. _Who_. He already knew what he was holding.

I flung the fishing pole down and picked my way through the mess. "It's no one!"

"This is full! Did Ray steal an urn from someone?" He asked, horrified.

"No!" I snatched the brass container from his hand and squeezed it in my arms. "It's my mom, okay?"

Derek's face fell and he frowned. "Lainey you can't just leave it here," He said as I moved to push it back into the pile he'd picked it out of. I turned and he didn't flinch or otherwise react to the venomous glare I leveled at him. Normally, we back down at this point in the conversation. He stood his ground. "You'll regret it for the rest of your life if you do," He warned, his face dark. "I'm serious. They'll empty this house soon and all of this will be gone. You can't just leave it."

My chest ached and I held the urn awkwardly between my hands. "It doesn't mean anything," I mumbled. "It's just an urn."

He shook his head. "You won't always feel that way."

I averted my gaze and suddenly shoved it at him. "You know what? You take the fucking thing. I'm done here."

"Lainey!" Derek blundered to catch the urn. "Lainey, stop!"

I was already halfway across the stuffy attic, and I didn't slow down or turn around. The boxy contraption stood in my path again and I lashed out with my foot, kicking it as hard as I could. It tumbled down the stairs and I went clambering after it, hopping off the last few steps to avoid it.

Derek didn't chase me. He followed at a more reasonable pace, and by the time he'd emerged from my house I was already leaning impatiently against his car with my arms crossed.

I glared at the urn in his arms. He looked unimpressed with me. "Really, Lainey?"

"I'm not holding that," I snarled. "You want to take it? _You_ can hold it!"

He shoved the urn at me. "Grow up!" He snapped, making my blood boil. "I can't drive with this sitting in my lap. You have to hold it."

"No!" I gestured at the car. "I can put it between the groceries or strap it into the back seat—"

"No." He caught my gaze and gave me a look of warning. "Lainey, I'm not kidding. Just hold it."

When the urn was in my hands, my throat tightened painfully and I stared at it intensely. I fought back an unbidden wave of emotion and gulped in a deep breath. "Get me out of here," I said, turning away from the house in disgust. I ripped the passenger door open. "Let's just go."

I was silent the whole ride and Derek never tried to make me speak. The urn sat between my legs and I glared out the window.

The moment the Camaro's tires neared the curb in front of the warehouse I threw the door open and got out of the seat.

I stomped across the sidewalk and turned in surprise when I saw Derek pull away. The car took off down the road and I gawked as he took the closest turn and disappeared from view.

I scoffed loudly and turned back to the depot. Once I was inside, I immediately went over to the fire pit. I stopped just short of dumping the fucking thing into the pit, and instead redirected it to the center of Derek's tall crate. I sat the urn down, turned, and stomped over to the punching bags.

I tore my off my jacket and stripped down to my bra so I could really rip into the things. The ferocity of my punches hurt—bad. I split my knuckles and at one point I'm positive that I broke my hand. The more I get injured now, the more that I realize we could still _feel_ all the pain that came with breaking bones and splitting skin. It's just that it healed very quickly and that allowed us to keep going. I kept punching, even after my arms burned and my punches were weak and my knuckles ached and stung with every hit, until I couldn't anymore.

I hung my head and caught my breath, my hands resting against the punching bags. There were spots that were cracked and some of the filling threatened to spill out.

 _Of course._ I thought of Derek's reaction at seeing the busted bag, and hung my head again.

After a moment I dragged my feet to the cart. I climbed up, across the beams and snuck a glance down at the ruined dodging panels in the obstacle course. All I do is break things. Hadn't I thought that same thing about Ray not so long ago?

I shook my head and continued along, and ducked into the office again. It was just as I remembered—dark, empty, and lonely. I recalled seeing a roll of duct tape on the desk so I retrieved that, and climbed back down to the punching bags.

I covered the damage I'd done with the tape and smoothed the silver patches over with a careful hand. I gave the spots a couple test punches and once I was satisfied, I dropped the roll of tape into my suitcase, closed it up, and plodded weakly back to the cart and fell face first into the first seat I saw.

For a long moment I lay there, frozen, until my lungs burned from lack of oxygen. I lifted my head and took a deep breath, turned on my side and hugged my knees to my chest.

xxx

I didn't fall asleep. I just laid there. My mind raced over a million things. Twinkie. Arnold Orlov. The urn that sat on Derek's crate a few yards away. Time passed, but I just felt… tired. Too tired to sleep, if that's possible. I felt empty. How had the day gone so horribly?

All I wanted to do was stay there and never move. But my stomach had other ideas. It rumbled painfully and the longer I ignored it, the deeper the ache grew. Eventually it dulled and then I just felt cold.

I knew I needed to get up. I rolled over, sat up, and took a breath.

At least four hours must have passed. I didn't let myself wonder where Derek had gone, and why he was taking so long, and if I would be with him now if we hadn't had that fight at my house. I did wonder what he would do if he returned to the depot before me and found it empty.

It was the first time I'd trained by myself. I wanted to push myself, to see how I would do without Derek barking orders in my ear. I wanted to see what had really changed about me when I still felt shitty as ever.

Tightening the laces in my worn shoes, I stood up and took a steadying breath. I did fifty laps in the classification yard, setting the same pace that Derek pushed me to use. By the time I hit the thirty-five mark, I was ready to quit. But I didn't. I finished all fifty.

Then, because I was filled with static energy that made me want to keep going, and also because I still didn't hear Derek inside, I forged through the woods. By now I'd pretty much memorized the path to the cliff.

I pushed my hair back and bent at the knee when I'd finally reached the cliff. It looked less impressive during the day. There were no lights. But then, I thought, everything looks more striking in the dark. Your mind can make it whatever it wants. Now, under the grey overcast sky, I could see the skyline for what it was, and it was distinctly ordinary. Nothing about it seemed beautiful.

My head spun and I knew I needed food because my hands shook. So, I turned back and headed to the diner.

xxx

"Whoa," Angie said when she saw me. "You okay? You look like you just got mugged."

I lifted my eyes to hers. Sighing, I ran a hand over my hair. "I'm exhausted," I said. "I just ran from the woods."

"What?" She squeaked. "Are you crazy? Why?"

Giving her a strange look, I shrugged defensively. "I don't know! I was jogging. What's the big deal?"

"You don't go jogging _in the woods_ , you idiot! Everybody knows that! Nobody goes there! Especially after what happened last year!"

I put my hands up against her attack and she continued fuming as I calmly asked, "What happened last year?"

"Elaine! Seriously!" She scolded, and I could see that motherly streak flaring inside her as she threw her head back to keep from exploding on me. Angie looked back at me again with a more collected, less crazed glare. "Remember? Last year, two joggers found a girl torn apart in the woods." She paused to wait for me to react and I just shook my head. "They said it was a mountain lion!" I shrugged helplessly. "Lainey, Kelsey's _uncle_ was killed in those woods by a mountain lion! I know you remember that! You were here when the news covered it on TV, you're seriously telling me you don't remember?"

"I—I guess not!" I frowned and looked away, racking my brain. "Not about Kelsey's uncle, I remember that, but the joggers… I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Those woods are crawling with cougars, Lainey. Don't go there alone anymore, you got that?" She warned, with a fierce expression on her face. "I'm not kidding! You're my best customer!"

I snorted loudly. "Glad to know where we stand!"

" _And_ you're my oldest friend. People die enough around here as it is, they don't need to go chase down predators in the woods to make it worse."

"All right, cool, but if I don't eat soon I might expire from starvation," I told her, patting my stomach.

"That I can help with." She paused and looked at the empty seat across from me. Her pen pointed at the spot. "Where's your man?"

"He's not my man," I grumbled, laying my hand on the table. "I'll give you a tip, if that's what you're worried about."

She kicked my leg. "Don't be an asshole! I'm asking because you guys have been like… attached at the hip. I ain't ever seen you bring a man two times in a row to the diner with you before. I've listened to podcasts that lasted longer than your relationships! And now he's just gone? What's up?"

I snorted. "He didn't _leave_. He's just not here right now, okay?"

She hummed skeptically. "Mhmm. Whatever you say. You hungry or just lonely?"

Her question had the desired effect and I smirked at her. "Hah. What would you feed a lonely person?"

"Girl, I know what you like. We've got pie, we've got bacon and eggs…" She smiled mischievously. "We've also got a pretty hot cook."

I laughed and sighed deeply. I rubbed at my eyes. "All of the above."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Really?" She asked, her voice high. "Antonio too? Daaaamn! You musta really liked that dude!"

"He's not—" I growled in frustration and covered my face. "Angie, please, I'm starving here!"

"All right! But, you should know, Antonio's got a fiancé. Things are pretty serious there."

"Ugh!" I flung my hand up. "I guess he's off the menu then, isn't he?"

She gestured over her shoulder as clicked her tongue as she sashayed away. "I guess so."

I buried my head in my arms and sighed heavily.

She decided to sit with me again while I ate, yelling at 'Toni' that she was taking her break.

"What, no Noah today?"

"He called in. Which was really shitty because he knew I promised my kids I'd take them to the pool, but I had to come in to cover his ass."

I scowled and chewed on the bacon from my plate. "Isn't it a little cold to swim?"

"It's an indoor pool."

"Nice. So why did Noah need a day off?"

"Noah doesn't need a reason," She rolled her eyes. "He walks around like he owns the place."

"He doesn't?" I asked. "Who does?"

"Really?" She scowled and shook her head. "Minnie, you idiot, it's in the name."

"When did everyone start calling me an idiot?" I asked to the diner in general, and Angie snorted.

"When you started acting like one. Who else calls you that?"

I focused my attention on the plate and muttered, "Derek."

"Ooooohh," Angie nodded, like she had figured something out through that one detail. "Okay. I get it now."

"What?" I snapped, and she put her hands up like I'd done earlier.

Angie shook her head and shrugged a shoulder. "No, nothin'. Anyways, would you hurry up and eat? I can't leave till you finish. You're my last customer. I gotta go get my kids from the pool."

"Is that code for having to take a shit?" I teased, and Angie gave a loud, fake laugh.

"Sick poop joke, Lainey," She teased, and I waved her off.

"You sent Cole to the pool by himself?" I shuddered at the thought of that little terror let loose, unleashed, to the general public. Especially somewhere vulnerable such as a pool, where people would be like sitting ducks for him to pick off.

"No!" She balked. "Do you think I'm stupid? He'd drown someone. Katie's at work so TJ took them."

Katie was her girlfriend. "Oh, TJ? Your brother is a lifeguard, what's the rush?"

"Two things," She said, ticking them off on her fingers as she spoke. "First, I miss those little shits. Second, TJ might be a lifeguard, but he's also a flirt. One hot chick in a skimpy bikini and I might as _well_ have sent those kids off to the pool by themselves."

"I remember that," I admitted. "He used to walk around telling every girl about the records he broke on the swim team, like that would automatically make them rip off their clothes and assume the position."

She snickered. "He still does sometimes! But you know what, it never worked on you. Why is that?"

"He liked me too much," I shrugged. "I like a challenge."

"Yeah," She nodded and grinned. "Me too."

"Okay, done." I shoved my plate away, which wasn't completely cleared off, and Angie looked at me in concern.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked, as I counted out money and left her what I could for a tip. She didn't look at it as I slid it across the table to her. "You didn't even eat your pie."

"I'm fine, Angie," I told her, and stood from the table. "Go save your kids. Well, go save Jaden and Aubree."

"All right. See you soon!"

We parted ways at the door, and I pushed onto the sidewalk and headed back to the depot.

xxx

That night, I found myself back in the office. I was really starting to grow annoyed at Derek's absence. I felt useless, sitting around here, waiting for him. If this is how it would always be, we were gonna have a problem.

Derek had left without dropping the groceries. That meant no food, but more importantly, no pillows, and I was sick of the whole side of my body falling asleep on the uncomfortable seats in the rusted subway cart. So I was lounging on the couch.

I must have dozed off, because when a thud woke me up I saw Derek standing over me. "AAAAGH!"

I fell off the couch and into the floor, his shoe under my face. A moment passed and I groaned.

"What are you doing up here?" Derek growled.

"You—you gave me a heart attack!" I gasped. I rolled off his foot and sat up, rubbing my chin. "How did you get in here?!"

Derek pointed back at an open door. "Up the stairs... How did _you_ get in here?"

I gawked at the open door and my face colored bright red. "Well… this is embarrassing."

"What did you do?" He asked, tiredly.

"Wait a minute!" I pushed myself up and took three large steps away from Derek to point an accusing finger at him. "I'm mad at you!"

He stared at me for a moment, blinking. "Is that right?"

"Yes!" I lifted my chin. "You were gone for—what time is it?"

"Ten fifteen PM."

I gasped loudly, my eyes bugging. "You dropped me off at noon! That's eleven hours! You were gone for eleven hours!"

"So?" He challenged, raising an eyebrow.

"So!" I put my hands on my hips lamely. "So… that's not cool!"

"Well, you broke into my office to sleep on my couch." He crossed his arms. "That's not cool either."

"Well… wasn't it unlocked?" I pointed at the door.

"But didn't you break in anyways?" He asked, knowingly.

I cleared my throat and looked away. "It's not like I stole anything," I tried, crossing my arms back.

He looked at me flatly. "Really?" He asked, skeptically.

I pressed my lips together. "…I guess we're even."

He scoffed and nodded as he dropped his arms and turned away. "Well, so glad that's sorted. Come on, there's one last thing to do tonight."

"Okay," I started after him. "I have to say that I am _really_ not up for the amount of control you have over this relationship."

"What do you mean?" He asked, feigning ignorance. I threw my hands up.

"You disappeared for eleven hours! After last night, when you said we were going to be doing a lot today, which implied you would actually be including me in everything that happened, but apparently you went off and did eleven hours worth of things without me and now—"

"Actually, if you'll recall, I said there were 'lots of things to do' today, not that 'we' had lots of things to do."

I growled and crossed my arms. "What _did_ you do?"

Derek took a long breath. "Well, I met with the guy about your birth certificate and driver's license. Then I got a late lunch. Then I ruled out a couple people I'd been considering for the bite. Then I almost got arrested."

"Wait, seriously?"

He nodded.

I smacked his arm, which hurt me more than it hurt him. "Why?"

"For existing? I don't know, they hate me."

I frowned and crossed my arms, and once Derek was sure I wouldn't ask any follow up questions, he continued.

"I had to lay low for a couple hours after that. Then I went to the gym and now I'm here." He went to stand near the stairs that led to the exit. "What did you do, other than lay in my office?"

"Laid in the cart," I smirked, and Derek rolled his eyes. "Sat by the fire bit. Went to the diner."

"Really? That's it?"

"I also ran for like, two hours or something." I tried and failed to resist sneaking a glance at the punching bags. "But that's pretty much it."

He made a noise of skepticism. "The car is outside. Let's go before it's too late."

xxx

I'm not saying I was expecting things to become clear and all the answers to just fall into my lap when Derek finally took me wherever it was he was taking me. But there was a lot of lead up to this point, and from my end, there were only more questions.

We stood in the parking lot of what appeared to be a funeral home. The car was parked behind us, and Derek was telling me to stay quiet and stay close.

"This is getting weird," I whispered to him, and he pointed out in the graveyard.

"See that?"

"What? That huge fucking backhoe with the spotlights and the crane? Yeah, I see it! Kinda hard to miss!"

Derek put his hand on my back to push me forward. "Actually I meant the person operating the backhoe."

I squinted in the dark and managed to see a guy, very close to my age, touching his cheek in the seat of the backhoe. He seemed lost in thought. "That kid? He's just sitting there. What is he doing?"

"His dad owns this funeral home," Derek told me. "So he's digging a grave."

"Wow. By himself? In the middle of the night? And I thought my dad was an asshole."

Derek slinked around me. "He is," He told me, and I scoffed at his blunt response as he waved at me to follow him. "Come on!"

We crept through the graveyard. It was spooky, and I loved it. Sort of. It also creeped me out, I won't lie. The headstones were very grim and the wind was, at that moment, still. It meant that every single noise in the surrounding area inevitably reached my ears.

From the leaves under our shoes, to the birds in the trees of the surrounding woods, all the way to the pathetic growl of that kid's stomach as he flicked a lever on the control panel of the backhoe and turned the machine to the side to drop a load of dirt on the ground.

"What's his name?" I wondered aloud. Derek was scanning our surroundings with his red, glowing eyes, no doubt using some sort of hyperaware, supernatural night vision that I didn't have yet.

"Isaac," He absently whispered. "Let's approach him from the side, in the open over there. I don't want any surprises."

"Man!" I gawked up at the statue that was attached to the headstone in front of us. "Look at that thing! It's like its eyes are following us," I dodged from side to the side. "Derek, look at this!"

"See his sword? That's supposed to be an archangel. It's protecting the graves."

"That's… disturbing." I shuddered. "It looks like an angel of death."

"Haha, yeah," Derek casually said, causing my gaze to snap to him in surprise, but he wasn't looking at me. "Don't look at him."

"Who?" I started to turn and Derek gripped my arm tightly in place.

"Act normal," He said under his breath.

I froze. My whole body went cold with chills. "Derek! Don't say creepy shit like that!"

He gripped my shoulder tightly. "I'm serious," He told me, his voice low and menacing. "There's somebody watching us."

"Fuck! Where?"

"Behind you." His eyes were trained on something over my shoulder and they shifted suddenly. I heard a guttural growl, like some sort of warning, and the hairs on my arms and neck stood up. My heart raced.

Derek's fingers tightened on my shoulder. "I'm going to go—"

"No!" I snatched his hand before he could leave. "Derek Hale, I swear to god, if you leave me I will kill you myself."

His eyes burned into mine as he came closer so he could talk under his breath. "Lainey, trust me. You will be fine. You can take a hit, but Isaac can't. I have to go to him."

I squeaked helplessly as Derek pried my hand from his and turned. He barely made it a step and a figure blurred past us out of the shadows, growling rabidly. It ran erratically, like a crazed, wild animal, and it barreled straight into the backhoe. It leapt over the side and disappeared.

I gasped and ducked behind the statue as the backhoe tipped and crashed over top of the grave that Isaac had been digging. Isaac made a noise of surprise and panic as he fell into the hole, and the glass in the windows of the backhoe shattered and fell with him.

Derek chased after the figure and I stayed rooted behind the statue. I watched as the figure, which I suddenly realized was a man, streaked behind a large nearby tree. Derek must not have seen him, or must have assumed he was leaving, or must have decided Isaac was the priority because he didn't give chase.

That was a mistake. The figure circled the tree and bolted across the graveyard, making a beeline straight for me. I leapt up on the statue to get to higher ground and all I could do was watch and wait, unwilling to abandon Derek and equally unwilling to lose the advantage of high ground.

I saw his glowing, yellow eyes first. He was running like a dog, with his hands catching the ground and his feet propelling him forward, and he darted between headstones in a complicated but swift path aimed straight for me.

As soon as he was within range I leapt off the statue and tackled the figure. We rolled across the grass and he snarled loudly and threw me off. I moved across the ground and scrambled to get to my feet and the man— _werewolf_ —grabbed the back of my neck.

He yanked me close and I gasped, thinking he was going to do something crazy like tear my throat out. My hand flashed out and as he pulled me up to his face I aimed for his nose. It broke under the heel of my hand and I grunted at the impact, pain flaring through my hand as he dropped me to clutch at his face.

He roared indignantly and made to snatch me again, but I ducked. Now, he was angry. Before he might have been curious or I don't know—I don't think he ever had good intentions but at least before he wasn't lunging at me like a rabid dog.

It was hard to dodge all of his attacks and he did get a few swipes in, one of which caught my side and I felt, for the first time, the true power of a werewolf. His hand was around my throat now. I sputtered and felt my windpipe collapse under the sheer power of his grip, and I felt claws piercing the tender skin of my neck and the hot wetness of blood.

Through the pain, I forced myself to move. My chest burned from the need to take a breath and my eyes watered, but I grabbed his wrist with my left hand and slid my finger between his palm and my neck, and broke his hold, and in one fluid movement I yanked his arm forward, grabbed his elbow and pushed down as hard as I could.

His arm snapped in half and he yowled with pain and dropped to his knees. Derek was there, suddenly, at our side, and he grabbed the man by his injured arm and flung him towards the woods.

The werewolf spun around and scrambled back. I gasped in frantic, desperate breaths of air. Through the dark, I could see him clutching his injured arm to his chest, and I knew it was broken by the way it jutted at the wrong angle. I smiled sadistically and before anything else could happen Derek roared the same deafening, ground shaking roar he'd used the first time I ran the obstacle course.

It sprung the man into motion and he fled into the woods. I watched him go and didn't move until Derek grabbed my face. "What?" My voice was not my own. It was rough and nearly muted.

"Don't move." He sounded alarmed; his touch was gentler than it had ever been. His fingers barely seemed to brush the base of my throat as he leaned in to inspect me. One of his fingers pressed a tender spot on my neck and I gasped in pain. He grabbed my arm before I could touch the spot he'd pressed. "I said don't move," he impatiently repeated.

Derek's hand dropped to my shirt. He turned me and lifted it up and a hiss left his teeth as he inspected the damage. "It would be better if you just took these off," He told me, his fingers clutching the hem of my shirt and jacket, and I immediately stilled his hands and stubbornly refused. "Lainey…" He sighed.

"I am not… stripping… in the middle… of a graveyard!"

"Okay," He placated. "Then just don't lean on that side for a while." He laid his hand against the side of my neck and told me there were still a few marks that were trying to heal, and for the third time, he told me not to move. I snorted a halting chuckle, my chest shuddering from adrenaline and shock and pain, and Derek's familiar intonation calmed me. "He was an omega."

"I thought... you said they were—supposed to be—weak," I stuttered through my teeth, which were still clenched in pain. The spots on my neck throbbed but it was the sharp stinging heat on my side that really bothered me.

"They are," He confirmed. "You broke his arm, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I breathed out a shaky laugh and offered him a big grin. "Broke it real good."

Derek's expression softened at my words and he opened his mouth.

"Uh… hello?"

We both turned to see Isaac standing there, looking stricken and confused.

"What just happened? Is she okay? Did you just… _lift_ that backhoe? Is that guy gone?"

I blinked, turning to Derek. "Is that how I sound all the time?"

Derek slyly looked away, a smirk ghosting his lips. "He's gone. He ran into the woods, and Lainey… scared him. He won't be back. Hey, do you have something she can put on this?"

"Sure—come on this way. Um, should I call an ambulance?"

Isaac led us around the wreckage of the backhoe and back towards the funeral home. "She's all right. Just a few scrapes."

I snorted roughly and Derek squeezed my wrist in warning.

"What's your name?" I asked instead, wanting to engage the kid to get a read on him.

"Um—Isaac." We walked to the back of a building and Isaac led us through a large, open garage door. This must have been where they kept the backhoe. "There's a first aid kit in here, do you think that would do?"

"Thank you," Derek nodded. We watched him go rummage through a cabinet against the wall. I gave Derek a questioning look, gesturing where Isaac couldn't see.

 _Hey, bozo, what is the plan here?_ I tried to express through my face, and Derek waved me off.

 _Relax,_ he seemed to reply, making a calming gesture.

 _He's freaking out!_ I jerked my head meaningfully to Isaac, who kept muttering to himself and dropping things. We could see his hands shaking from here.

"Stupid backhoe…" He muttered. Isaac paused in searching for the first aid kid to press a hand to his face again, and I noticed that he had bruises. His expression was dark. I wondered how he got the bruises. He seemed to remember himself, and took in a breath and stole a glance at us.

When he realized we'd been watching he made a show of spotting the first aid kit, which was tucked back in the cabinet. "Oh! There it is. Sorry about that."

Derek shrugged to indicate that he didn't particularly care and I felt awkward, so I smoothed the torn edge of my shirt down and tried to ignore it. Isaac handed the first aid kit to Derek.

He was tall, taller than Derek but twice as skinny, like he was stretched too thin. He had curly, dishwater brown hair, and his gaze stayed low. He seemed to sneak a lot of looks, like he'd been conditioned not to look directly at a person or something. I'd known a lot of kids like him. Kids with assholes for parents. Normally they grew out of it as they got older and developed bad attitudes, but not him. He kept his head down and rubbed his neck frequently, and even now he seemed lost in thought, troubled about something.

Derek and I exchanged a glance. I opened my mouth. "So do you work out here all alone—"

"I'm sorry," Isaac interrupted, shaking his head. He looked between us. "I just—I know what I saw out there. I mean, I know what I _think_ I saw out there, but it doesn't make any sense. What are you two even doing here? What exactly happened?" We didn't immediately respond. "Because what I have in my head, it… it can't be right."

"Why?" Derek spoke up. "What is it that you think you saw?"

Isaac was embarrassed. He couldn't look at us anymore. He turned away and crossed his arms. When he stepped, he took wide, loping strides, but he moved slowly. "Just—flashes. I heard more than I saw. It sounded like… growling. Like an animal. But when I was able to peek out of the—the hole, it… was a man." He looked at Derek with a deep frown on his face. "It was a man."

Derek stared back at him. I could see he was unsure of exactly how to proceed, now that Isaac stood here and asked him the direct question. I felt bad for him. Both of them. So, I spoke up.

"Claws," I said, drawing both of their gazes. They both seemed uncertain. I ran a finger over my lip and thought back. "He had claws. Derek?"

Isaac looked back at him and Derek frowned.

"What do you mean, he had like…" Isaac lifted his hand and clenched his fingers into a monster hand. "Claws? Like, claws-claws? Like on his fingers?"

I let a smirk play at my lips. "Is there another kind?"

Isaac shook his head, his face a deep frown of confusion. "I don't…"

"You'll get them too," Derek told me. "After you shift the first time."

"Wow, all these delayed superpowers. Anything else cool you're not telling me yet? Or is it a surprise?" I teased, and Derek gave me a dirty look that told me now was not the time for my clever little comments.

"Wait—what?" Isaac started.

"He wasn't a man, Isaac," Derek said, leveling a sober gaze at the kid, even as Isaac's face changed to that of a person realizing their worst fears. "He was a werewolf."

Isaac scoffed and then when he saw our straight, serious expressions, his smile fell. He looked at me. "Wait… what?"

I grinned. "Oh, he's cute!" I declared. "Can we keep him?"

Derek pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Lainey…"

"Ohhh," Isaac pretended to understand, and I could sense his growing panic as he backed towards a door. "Yeah! No, I get it. I'm sorry, I just didn't understand what you meant at first but now I get it. He's a _were_ wolf! Wow."

"Why is he doing that?" I pointed at him backing to the door. "He's about to leave, Derek."

Derek finally strode forward and took control. "Stop," He commanded, his eyes flashing red, and Isaac sucked in a breath and froze. "Isaac, hear me out. You have questions? Well, we have answers. You said you saw him. What did you see?"

Isaac shook his head. "Just—just for a second!"

"What did you _see?_ "

"He was digging!" Isaac finally cried. "In the dirt, it was flying over his shoulder and he was digging like a dog…like a…" He trailed off and looked back up. "He was crazy," He weakly insisted. "Right? Delusional. High."

"Stop trying to rationalize it," Derek suggested. "And just listen to what we're telling you."

Isaac continued to watch us warily. Finally, he nodded, and relaxed from backing towards the door like he was about to bolt at any second.

"He was trying to scare you," Derek explained. "He was using the graveyard to his advantage and he knew it would scare you."

"Why?"

Derek hesitated. "To throw me off."

Isaac frowned deeply. "Why?"

"To take out the competition."

"Why?" Isaac and I chorused.

Derek eyed us for a moment, lingering on both of us before he said, "Because he wants to be part of my pack."

I barked a shrill, disbelieving laugh, and covered my mouth so I didn't ruin his momentum in explaining. But I cast Derek a meaningful look that expressed the chance I'd bring this up again later, and he sighed as he looked away.

"Part of your… pack?" Isaac clarified, his chin dropping slightly at the last word.

Derek nodded.

"Because you're also a werewolf?"

Derek nodded again. "An alpha. He's an omega. He doesn't belong to a pack, and he wants one. He was trying to prove his power to me, his strength, to make himself seem like the more valuable option so I would pick him as a beta. That's also why he attacked you."

"Her?" Isaac pointed at me. "He attacked her?"

"A little," I waved off, and Derek snorted. "Got me in the side and a little on the neck. But don't worry, I broke his arm."

Derek didn't comment and Isaac gawked at me. "So… you're _also_ a werewolf?"

"Oh no!" I passive-aggressively glared at Derek from the corner of my eye, as I said, "No, I am not officially a werewolf. That won't happen until I shift under my first full moon which is… rapidly approaching."

Isaac was dumbstruck. He blinked and tried to process all the information. "Why haven't you yet?"

"Why haven't I what?"

"Shifted?"

"Oh." I looked at Derek. "Because I'm a newbie. I was bitten, and I survived the bite—obviously—but there hasn't been a full moon since I was bitten."

"Who bit you?" Isaac asked. "Was it him?" He gestured at Derek.

"Yes," We chorused.

"Why?" Isaac asked.

I blinked. "Why what?" I frowned.

"Why did he bite you?"

My frown deepened. "To… make me a werewolf? I'm sorry, what part of this is confusing you?"

Derek smirked at my frustration and Isaac seemed awkward at the hostility as he tried to think of a retort. "The… the part where you let him bite you? Why did you want to become a werewolf? Wouldn't it be… painful?"

Of course he would ask me that. The truth was, I couldn't remember, because I couldn't remember that night very well. But that detail would not help here, so I deflected. "I suppose there were a number of reasons, but you know what? I'm really not the best person to be explaining this—Derek? Why don't you take over?"

I sat back and crossed my arms. Derek made a good pitch. He boasted about the strength and the power and all the perks, leaving out the gritty details about the painful shift but including the part about the risk of dying.

In the end, Isaac asked the question. Derek didn't even have to, which I think was more than he had hoped for. Apparently the idea of power is simply too alluring, especially to a battered, bruised kid who can barely make eye contact.

We left soon after that, and the walk back to the car was silent. We were both watching the shadows very closely for any errant movement. I strained my ears but I couldn't hear anything that sounded like it might be a pissed of omega gearing up for round two.

The moment I was back on the comforting leather passenger seat, I sighed in appreciation and slouched down into it.

"Can we be done?" I said through a yawn. "I'm not sure how much more I can do."

"Shame," He quipped. "I was going to have us run when—"

He stopped when my eyes snapped open and I whipped around to gawk at him.

Derek cracked a wide smirk. "I just wanted to see your face," He chuckled when I elbowed him and I sank down in the seat, muttering insults at him. I was asleep before we reached the depot.

* * *

 _Chapter Song: Beggin for Thread - Banks_


	10. Chapter 10

_Quick note, I edited the first chapter and added in a prologue. It includes the scene when Lainey and Kelsey went to Derek for the bite, if you're interested in seeing that. Right! That's it! Happy reading!_

* * *

Two soft pillows caressed my head and I found myself sighing pleasantly when I woke. I felt more rested than I had in what felt like a lifetime. I stretched my arms over my head and for a second I braced for the impact of that familiar shoe in my shoulder or ribs, as Derek had made a habit of doing.

The nudge never came and I found that I'd awoken before Derek. This seemed something of an event, an event that might not ever happen again. I knew I couldn't let the opportunity pass me by. My curious nature demanded that I spy.

I held my breath and sat up on my seat to crawl forward, finding that a blanket I hadn't had before slipped to the dirty floor of the subway cart. I ignored it and peered over the edge of the seat.

Derek was turned on his side, his back to me. A pillow was propped between his arm and his head and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he slept with his shirt off. There was a pale brown blanket wrapped around his hips that covered his legs, one of his feet poking out, but my gaze was glued to his toned back.

A tattoo. Had he always had it? I thought back and acknowledged that yes, I had been aware, in some far recess of my mind, that Derek had a tattoo on his back. I'd noticed it with the sort of fleeting admiration that made you grow warm and want to make him stand there so you could just stare at it. But now I saw it and a sharp sense of alarm blazed through me.

I had tattoos too. Or, I was supposed to. But I hadn't seen them. Not in a while. I slid off the seat and pulled my shirt up. The little flower on my hip, gone. I continued the search, and bent to tug up the leg of my sweatpants. The rocket ship and moon, gone.

I froze when I realized I was wearing my unofficial pajamas. The softest t-shirt I owned that was a Blue Öyster Cult cut off, my sweatpants and bare feet. I knew I had not changed before bed. This meant Derek had stripped me down.

My hands flew to my chest and I sighed in relief when my hands cupped bra. I still had some dignity, then, however little there may be.

With that, I continued my search. I was also supposed to have tattoos on my back. There was no way to check that without a mirror or another person, though. My eyes flashed to Derek and I quickly dispelled the thought. Unlike him, I respected others' need for sleep, and the thought of waking him just to ask about my tattoos made me feel guilty since I never really saw him sleeping to begin with.

If tattoos were gone, then did that mean…?

I ran my fingers over my forehead, trying to feel for the scar I'd gotten when I was four years old, and I fell and busted my head on a slab of concrete in an alley. Nothing was there but smooth skin—no raised, bumpy scar. I turned my wrist over. No burn mark.

I lifted my t-shirt sleeve. No scar. I lifted my shirt again and peered down at my chest, at a spot of skin right between my breasts. No scar from the chicken pox I'd had as a child.

One by one, I checked my body over as much as I could, and found another two tattoos and five scars had up and vanished right out from under my nose.

How could that even be possible? How could one lose…?

I sighed and flopped back on my seat, my head bouncing on the new pillows.

"Laura!"

I bolted upright and searched for the source of the anguished mutter. In the quiet of the depot, it might as well have been a shout. Derek sighed in his sleep and I turned to watch him. He flipped, facing me now, and I realized he was sweating. He grunted and twisted again, turning his face away.

Derek was having a nightmare?

He growled loudly and I jumped. Derek was having a nightmare!

When he kicked his leg and accidentally knocked his foot into the rail beside his seat and the whole subway cart shuddered, I sprung to my feet.

I went to him without thinking, but as soon as I stood over him I hesitated.

He huffed again and I found myself staring rapt at his features. He looked so… distraught. His face was twisted with pain and he could barely lie still. He just kept turning and every now and then a movement was punctuated with a growl.

He flipped towards me and hesitantly, I reached down to touch the deep, angry line between his brows, my heart hammering in my chest. He froze. He didn't even breathe. For a moment nothing happened.

I smoothed my finger over the line and kept going, sweeping across his strong forehead and into the surprisingly soft, dark hair on his head. Derek sighed and I released the breath I was holding, curling my fingers deeper into his hair, and he relaxed.

In an instant, he looked years younger. The tension, anguish and unease melted from his face and all that was left was Derek. He still looked like Derek, just… I never knew until that moment what burdens he must have carried every day, and I never knew quite how visible they really were. You just had to know where to look.

In his jaw, which was usually so tight it seemed like the muscle there was always dancing, but was now slack. In his lips, which were normally twisted into a sneer or a scowl, but were smooth and parted and I noticed how full they actually were when they weren't compressed into a tight, displeased frown.

And especially in his eyes, which were normally intense and carried so much of what made him who he was in his waking hours, but were restful now, and since I was taking the time to study him I realized that Derek's eyelashes were longer than most girl's I knew. They fluttered open and for a moment I thought I'd been concentrating so deeply that I'd hallucinated them peering up at me.

He looked as surprised to see me as I was to see him. _Busted_!

Confusion mottled his features and I realized that he was still half asleep. I jerked away and clutched my hands to my chest. "What happened?" He drearily asked, raising his head, his hair flat on one side.

I giggled at the sight and covered my mouth in shock. Derek turned to frown at me, still puzzled.

"Lainey? What're you doing? What time is it?"

His voice was deep and groggy and it made me feel warm with affection that I didn't expect.

"Shhhh," I told him, thinking fast. "You were snoring. It woke me up."

"Sorry," He sighed and flopped over again. I frowned at that. I don't think Derek apologizes to anyone for anything. He grunted and burrowed down into his pillows. "I'll get up… in a minute."

I covered my mouth to keep myself from making any noise at all as he settled back down and drifted back to sleep right in front of me.

For a long moment I stood, frozen. Instinctually, I knew Derek would not remember this moment in the morning. So I reached down to grab his blanket and pull it up over his chest. His steady breath fanned across my wrists when I tucked it near his shoulder, and I touched the flat part of his hair.

I yanked my hand back quick as lightening and stared, baffled at my actions. I held very still and hesitantly waited for him to sit back up and snap at me. Derek stayed asleep, blissfully unaware, and free of whatever nightmares were haunting him when I approached.

I retreated slowly and climbed back into my seat, curling my knees to my chest, staring at the dark window in front of me. I didn't move again, shaken by the way I'd felt not only when I soothed Derek in his sleep, but also how I felt now, afterwards. I vowed to never speak of what I'd done and I prayed he wouldn't remember in the morning.

xxx

Derek was off today. Something had changed. He wasn't as steady as I'd come to expect. It was subtle and if I didn't know him as well as I already did I might have chalked it up to pure exhaustion.

It started right before the sun rose. I hadn't been able to get back to sleep, so about two hours after I caught Derek in his nightmare, I just decided to get up.

I found ways to keep myself busy. I had breakfast—nothing grand, just a protein bar and a can of Redbull. I was wired after that. Roaming the depot proved boring and unfulfilling, and still, Derek slept.

So I decided to start with repairing the obstacle course. Derek hadn't even bothered to touch the beam. It really had crushed everything. Cutting a line straight through the center of the panels, it had divided them and the cement that was left was mere rubble. What a mess.

The metal that the beam consisted of had to be a smelted mixture but I was pretty positive there was wrought iron in there somewhere, because it was heavier than the weights I lifted on the bench press. I tried to pick it up but found it would be nearly impossible to move it by myself without clearing away some of the debris first.

So I went to retrieve an empty barrel and carried it over. I dropped it on the ground and it landed with a great, resounding thud that was much louder than I'd anticipated. I winced and looked over my shoulder in the direction of the cart where Derek slept, but froze when I saw him standing at the edge of the obstacle course.

Instantly, I noticed there was something wrong. He looked crabbier than usual, but that's not what captured my attention. It was the pallor to his skin and his bloodshot eyes. He looked hung over, or sick. "What are you doing?" He rumbled.

"I still have a day left," I reminded him, turning to look at the mess in front of me, pretending I hadn't noticed something was up. "So don't even start with me."

"What are you talking about—" Derek trailed off and blinked at the ruined dodging panels. "Oh. A day. Your last day. You'll never make it in time."

"Oh yeah? Well maybe if I had some help—"

"I'm not helping you," He said, crossing his arms. "You broke it, you fix it."

"Why are you assuming this is my fault?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips. "Do you really think I could make a beam randomly collapse just to spite you?"

"I haven't heard you deny it yet, now have I?" He challenged, raising an eyebrow.

I narrowed my eyes. He stared at me and waited for my response. "Are you really going to make me do this by myself?"

He scoffed. "What's the matter? Too much responsibility? If you can't handle it, all you need to do is say so."

I balled my fists up and turned away to pick up a chunk of rubble. I shot it into the barrel like a basketball and the whole thing teetered on impact, but it landed. Encouraged, I retrieved another one and when I lifted it, I cried, "LeBron!" when I threw it. It smacked the edge and bounced off, splitting into several pieces that scattered across the ground and made a bigger mess.

Derek rolled his eyes. "Glad to see you're taking this seriously. I would expect no less from you." He dropped his arms and turned to leave. "I'm going to do some actual work, and when I get back, you'd better have made some progress."

"I'm making progress!" I shouted at his retreating form. "Look! You can see the floor in this spot! See? I'm standing on the floor over here! Derek!"

He took the steps two at a time and when his hand touched the door I called out something that made him freeze.

"Who's Laura?"

The change in mood and atmosphere was instantaneous. I'd never seen him so tense before. He stood with his shoulders nearly touching his ears and his hand pressed flatly against the metal door. He started to move and I heard a sound like nails scratching a chalkboard, and realized his claws had come out.

Unconsciously, I took a step back and put my hand up.

Derek turned and when I saw his face my throat closed up at the look he gave me. It was murderous.

"What did you just say?"

I blinked and tried to feign nonchalance. "No, nothing—you just… you called to someone named Laura in your sleep last night, and I—"

"Don't talk about her," He growled, squeezing his hands into tight fists.

"Why?" I pressed, refusing to back down. I crossed my arms at him.

He studied me for a few moments and blinked. When his eyes opened, the red had dimmed, leaving his green eyes that were so dark it would've been better if they'd just stayed red. "It's none of your damn business, that's why!"

"Oh, so you can ask about Ray and pry into my life, but your life is off limits?"

"That's not what I said—"

"Then what are you saying?"

"This is different!" He boomed. I raised my eyebrows in a clear challenge, knowing that if the roles were reversed and he'd seen me acting the way he did last night, and then saw it continue to effect me the next day, he wouldn't let it go either. He started down the stairs. "Why can't you ever _listen_ to me?"

"I'm trying to listen! You're not saying anything!" I yelled back, hopping across the wall of the obstacle course to throw an accusing finger at him. "What's the big deal? Why do you get to have secrets?"

"It's not a secret!"

"Great! Then just tell me! Who is Laura?"

Derek snarled and stopped just short of grabbing me by the shoulders and throwing me into the ground, instead focusing his anger on the column beside us. He threw his fist into it and a huge chunk of it came off and littered the ground.

I stared down at the mess he made and slowly looked up to see he was already panting and glaring at me, his fists at his side. "She was an alpha."

" _Was_ an alpha?" I put a hand on my hip. "Past tense?"

"Yes," He seethed through his teeth, looking ready to tear me limb from limb, but I didn't let that intimidate me. " _Past_ tense!"

I almost chickened out, but I forced the words out of my mouth. "So she's gone now?"

"Yeah! She's gone! So just let it go!"

"Did she leave?" I guessed, and he was practically vibrating with fury. I knew I was pushing it but it was like I couldn't stop. "Is she an ex?"

"An ex what?" He snapped, making a face at me.

"Girlfriend! Your ex girlfriend?"

"No! God, why do you do this?" He threw his hands up. "You can't just let things be, can you? You can't just leave it alone?"

"Not when you're like this, I can't!" I cried.

"Like what?"

"Like this! Distraught!"

He came close enough that he towered over me. "Do I look distraught to you?"

No, he looked dangerous. I didn't let it stop me. "Is she family, then? Your sister?"

"And what would you know about family?" He hissed, and I recoiled. He advanced. "You don't know a thing about it! You've never really had it in the first place, so how could you know how it feels when you lose it?"

If I said his words didn't sting, it would be a lie so big that even I couldn't spin it with a straight face. I was no less obliterated than the cement around me. But I'm familiar with people who twist their own hurt around on you. "Wow, you're right," I told him, my voice low and noncombatant, the complete opposite of his thunderous spite. "That must have been really difficult for you. It must be really hard to have to deal with that on your own. If only there were someone who cared enough to notice that and ask you about it."

The depot went quiet as Derek stared at me, apparently dumbstruck. "That's not what I meant."

"What _did_ you mean?" I asked, tilting my head. "Because it sounded pretty clear to me."

We stared each other down. Derek shifted. "That was out of line." He looked away. "I didn't mean it."

"Yes you did," I sneered. "Don't start lying to me now. Look, Derek, you're an asshole but you're not even close to being the cruelest person in my life. I can handle a little brutal honesty. And anyway, I'm the one who was out of line. I see that now. Don't worry, won't happen again."

"Lainey, stop." He reached out to grab my arm before I could step around him. "It's not easy for me to talk about that kind of stuff, okay?"

"Of course it's not easy! It never is. I didn't ask because I thought it would be an 'easy' thing to discuss! A couple days ago, someone told me that I wasn't alone anymore. I assumed they knew it went both ways, but apparently not."

Derek looked down.

I nudged him in the side. "Good thing I'm here to knock some sense into him, huh?"

He scoffed and nudged me back. "Don't get cocky." I smirked. He stopped and his remorse twisted into something more painful. "…My sister," He finally admitted, hanging his head. "She was my sister."

I lifted my hand as if to touch him, but thought better of it at the last second and withdrew. "She died?"

He brushed around me and began to walk the floor. "She was killed."

"I'm sorry." I watched as he paced.

"Don't be," He practically snarled, and I was starting to think he hated when I apologized to him because he always said that. "It's not your fault."

"Whose fault was it?" I prodded, because I knew if I didn't ask now I might never get the chance again.

Derek stopped pacing and turned his head without looking at me. He clenched his fist. "Peter," He murmured.

"To be clear, you're talking about Peter… as in your _Uncle_ Peter?"

Derek clenched his jaw and his nostrils flared. He seemed to be gathering control and he closed his eyes. He nodded.

"Geez."

He opened his eyes and leveled a glare at me, turning to face me. "I thought we weren't supposed to judge each other."

"I'm not judging _you_ ," I insisted, crossing my arms. "I'm judging your asshole uncle Peter."

"You don't know the whole story yet," He frowned. "What if Laura was the bad one?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't really seem like it, but okay. Is she?"

He paused and looked down again before he shook his head.

"Well okay then. So Peter is an asshole and I should trust my instincts."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Are you really making this about you?"

I snickered and shook my head. "No, don't be ridiculous. I'm just making a point."

"Well stop it. It's annoying."

I grinned. "Sorry."

He sent me a withering glare. Finally, he started pacing again. "Why did you bring this up now?"

"Because it came up?"

"Really? I think I'd remember mentioning something like this."

"I told you, when you were sleeping last night—you must have been having a nightmare. You called her name."

He stared at me as he processed this. "So you thought it was a good idea to bring it up?"

"You look awful!" I defended, pointing at him. "Look at you!"

He chuckled and I wondered how someone could do such a complete flip on the emotional spectrum. I flashed him a strange look, and he shook his head. "Well, it wasn't a total disaster," He admitted. "I think I might feel a little bit better."

"Good. That was the goal, believe it or not."

He nodded and hesitated. "I should go."

I shrugged a shoulder. "If you must."

I felt his gaze linger on my back, but I busied myself with gathering up heavy chunks of cement and didn't slow until I heard the door close behind him. Finally pausing, I took a breath and looked around the depot, running a hand over my hair. I shook myself off and tucked into cleaning up the obstacle course.

xxx

It was much later when I heard the door open again. But I knew straight away that Derek wasn't alone. Isaac was with him, and he was looking at everything with wide, uncertain eyes.

I remembered how overwhelming it felt the first time I was in the depot, and how long it took me to discover everything there was to see here.

He followed Derek at a slower pace. Derek gestured between us. "Lainey, you remember Isaac."

I nodded at him. "Hey, dude. You look freaked out."

Derek shot me a glare and Isaac's eyes snapped to me. "I do?"

"Are you?"

"A little." He shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "What is that?"

We turned to look at the now empty space I stood in. "This? It's a section of the obstacle course."

"Wow, really? An obstacle course?"

I laughed lowly at him and shook my head. "Ohhh, no. No, no. You won't be so eager once Derek puts you through it about a thousand times."

He looked significantly more cautious and he seemed to want to comment but Derek spoke over him. "But that can't happen until _Lainey_ fixes her mess."

I threw my arms out and gestured around. "Look! Look at this potential! It's a blank canvas."

The rubble had been cleared. It took about three barrels, which were now shoved in along the perimeter of the obstacle course near Derek and Isaac. All three were overflowing. I'd managed to drag the beam to the side, but had yet to actually move it somewhere since I wasn't sure what Derek really wanted to do with it now.

The floor was open and there were only little chunks of cement left here and there. I'd been about to go search for a broom in the office when they interrupted.

"There's only… nine hours left in the day. It took you seven hours to get this far, what exactly are you hoping to accomplish?"

"I took a break for lunch," I excused, and Derek was not impressed. "Derek, come on." I put my hands on my hips. "I have a process. A little faith, please?"

He snorted and rolled his eyes. "Oh, I have faith. Faith that I'm right. You don't even have any supplies! The point of an obstacle course is for there to be _obstacles_."

"Hey!" I pointed at Isaac. "You hear this? You hear this complete lack of trust? I have a vision!"

"Yeah, I know," Derek dryly quipped, tilting his head. "You've mentioned it. Something about fire and wind, was it?"

Isaac snorted and then his smirk withered at the fierce glare I sent his way. "You don't get to laugh, cornstalk!"

"Lainey," Derek warned. "Play nice."

I growled and Isaac took a few steps back as he followed Derek around the obstacle course.

After Derek led Isaac out to the classification yard, I was able to return my efforts to the obstacle course. For all my big talk, I really didn't have much of a plan. And by that I mean I had no idea.

All I really knew was that I wanted to prove Derek wrong. So I sat down on one of the crates that made the perimeter of the obstacle course, and brain stormed.

In order to get to this obstacle, you had to climb through the corridor. After the dodging panels was the bridge. I knew Derek mentioned wishing he'd used more climbing to build the course, but I couldn't say I agreed with him there.

I thought maybe some exploration of the office would help. There were plenty of instruction manuals, gadgets and gizmos and something was bound to spark some inspiration. I climbed over the crates and headed over to the end of the course, where the actual stairs were.

The stairs were really steep, and made of metal. There was a railing along the wall and I impulsively reached out to touch it as I ascended the steps. Like a normal person, I entered the office for the first time through the door instead of the window.

It took me forty minutes to come up with a feasible idea, and then another thirty minutes to come up with an actual plan of action. And then it took me two hours to gather the supplies. That's a total of three hours and ten minutes preparation.

I was in and out of the office, frequently running back up to grab tools. I lost countless pencils that I thought I'd stuck behind my ear and ended up running out of them, so I used nails to finish scratching the plans out on the cement.

All the while, I could hear Derek pushing Isaac to run faster—leap higher—duck lower. All familiar instructions. All familiar reactions, too, because I could hear Isaac's labored breathing and grunts of effort that started about an hour into their training, and I smirked because I knew Derek was just getting started with him.

xxx

I bent down to grab the pole and lifted it up, keeping the rope tucked under my elbow as I went. The pole was just as heavy as I expected but I overcompensated for the weight and hadn't counted on just how quickly I'd push the damn thing. It stood up, tipped, and teetered slightly before sailing for the ground and I dropped the bundle of rope as a string of curse poured from my mouth while I lunged to catch the pole.

Hands caught the pole. I was shocked to see Isaac, squatting down to catch the pole just in time before it crashed on the ground. The whole form quivered loudly and Isaac's face screwed up as if to brace himself for more pain than he ended up feeling.

He cracked an eye open. Gradually, he opened both eyes and looked at me, lifting the pole back up. He pushed it upright and I reached out to balance it with him.

"What do you think you're doing?" I asked.

"Well I thought I was helping," Isaac said, looking around. "You looked like you could use some."

"Where's Derek?"

"He said he had to go. There was something he needed to do."

I stared at him and Isaac paused.

"Um… He… he got a call on his phone and said he had to leave because your driver's license was ready."

"Nice!" I punched his shoulder and Isaac winced. "See? Was that so hard?"

He leg go of the pole with one hand to rub at his shoulder. "God, you're strong."

"Derek said he wouldn't help."

"Do I look like Derek to you?" Isaac asked, and I paused.

A smirk pulled at my lips. "Not even a little bit," I said, shaking my head.

A beat passed. "Why do I feel insulted?" He wondered, making me snicker. He frowned at the lack of response but decided to let it go, apparently, shaking his head. "Did Derek say you had to do this by yourself?"

"…Not in so many words," I allowed, suddenly deciding that Isaac wasn't so bad. "It's, what, a little after eight o'clock? Don't you have anything better to do?"

"My dad thinks I'm tending graves right now. This _is_ better."

I narrowed my eyes at him for a moment, scrutinizing him. He shifted uncomfortably. "How do you feel about heights, Isaac?"

He shrugged.

"And tying knots?"

"Like, with rope?"

I nodded.

"Okay, I guess. I've got fingers. Mechanically, I can handle a knot."

"Fantastic! How about digging?"

He gave me a wry look. "You heard me say I work in a graveyard, right?"

"Yes," I declared. "You shall do fine for my purposes." I stepped back and pointed to the end of the structure I'd created. "To the far wall, cornstalk!"

"Can you _not_ call me that?"

"Forthwith!"

Isaac sighed.

xxx

Some time later, we were sitting on the ground. I held a thick peg of wood between my knees, one hand covering the top so I could drill a hole through it.

Isaac sat nearby with a few finished pegs, lacing rope through the holes.

"This is actually a pretty good idea," Isaac said. "Have you ever thought of being an engineer?"

"Engineers build machines." I turned the peg from side to side, eyeing it critically. Readjusting the angle, I pushed the drill back into the hole. "I'm better at taking things apart."

"But you're building a climbing obstacle made entirely of a wooden structure using poles, wood and rope. And as far as I can tell, it's going to work."

"Yeah but that's different."

"Sure," Isaac agreed. The drill shrilly cut in as I widened the hole in the peg. I lifted it up to peer at him through it and then blew the shreds of wood at him. He made a noise of disgust and brushed the shavings off his shirt. "How is it different, again?"

"Because this is to prove Derek wrong." I set the peg aside and picked up the next one. "Intent matters."

Isaac tilted his head. "Does it?"

I looked up at him, a smirk playing at my lips. "It does in a court of law."

He hummed skeptically and picked up a hook. He grabbed the end of the rope and started to thread it through the bottom of the hook. "If you say so."

"Okay," I said, setting my peg aside. I crawled forward and took the rope from his hands. "These are almost done, I can finish them. You start digging."

"How deep were you thinking?"

"What would be a challenge to climb out of?"

Isaac considered it. "For my job, I can dig a four-foot deep hole in about two and a half hours by hand."

"Four feet is nothing. Deeper. Also, we have a little over two hours left, so you're going to try and dig it in an hour and a half."

He laughed. I looked up at him and he stopped laughing, his smile slowly falling. "Um, okay. Six feet?"

"Better," I nodded.

"Hey, how are we going to bust through the concrete?"

Wordlessly, I pointed over to the stack of wood I'd gathered from breaking apart crates. There was a sledgehammer leaning against the wood.

"Try not to break it," I said.

Isaac turned to frown at me. "Break what?"

I looked up at him. "The sledgehammer. We've only got the one." I turned away to finish up the ropes and pegs.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Isaac grin widely as he picked up the sledgehammer and tested its weight.

xxx

"What… the hell… is this?"

Derek peered down at us from the hole. I spread my hands widely apart. "What do you think?"

"Did you two _build_ this?"

I let my hands drop. "Yes! Well, us and about thirty gnomes. It was wild, you just missed them. I think I'm their mayor now."

"You have a very vivid imagination," Isaac informed me, and I waved at him over my shoulder and put my hands on my hips as Derek disappeared to test some part of the structure.

"It's okay, Derek." I called. "You can say it! We already know it's bad ass."

Isaac was amused and Derek began to walk the length of the structure. He pointed up at the ropes and pegs. "How are those secured?"

"Ma-gic!" I beamed at the unimpressed glare he gave me. "We welded the metal!"

"Yes, I can see that!" He growled. "How?"

"With a torch, dumb ass! Help me out." I held my hand up and Derek seemed to hesitate for a long moment before he finally reached down and grabbed my hand, lifting me out of the hole.

I followed him as he continued to inspect my handiwork.

"You did this in nine hours?" He had his arms crossed and looked like he didn't quite buy it.

"It would've been sooner, but Isaac broke the sledgehammer. After I _explicitly_ told him not to!"

"Sorry!" His voice called. "Hey, can one of you give me a hand?"

We ignored him. "You broke my sledgehammer?" Derek asked me, dropping his arms.

"Were you not listening? I said it was Isaac!"

"But you were in charge?" He assumed.

I pressed my lips together and looked at him flatly. "So now it's my fault?"

"Yes, that's what it means to lead! You're directly responsible for the actions of your subordinates!" Derek rubbed his face in exasperation and sighed.

"I claim to rule no one." I crossed my arms defiantly. "I subscribe to a strict live and let live policy."

"Oh, except for a village of imaginary gnomes?"

"They're helpless and have a passion for serving. It's different."

Derek stared at me for a long moment. I cracked a grin and he rolled his eyes. "You're unbelievable."

"Um, thanks I think?"

He sighed loudly. "Well, I'm going to have to secure that ladder." He pointed down at the start of my obstacle. "Did you just lean it against that?"

"Yeah!" I shrugged. Frustrated, he threw his hands up at me in question. "What? I was getting to it!"

"Well it's an accident waiting to happen."

"Okay, but what about the rest of it?" I gestured widely.

The ladder that Derek mentioned led to the start of the obstacle. The structure went higher than that, reminiscent of an oversized set of monkey bars. The bars were too high to reach because they weren't meant to be used—they simply held the ropes that threaded through either side of them and connected back down at the pegs I'd been drilling earlier. The ropes and peg portion was long enough for someone of reasonable height to stand in.

The difficult part would be stepping onto the pegs and swinging to grab the next one, step onto the peg, swing, grab the next one, step onto the peg—so on and so forth—and you continued to do this in order to progress through the obstacle. And if you fell, there was a six-foot hole waiting to meet you.

It might not sound so bad but I had a feeling figuring out how to balance on the pegs would be the hardest part because I knew the pegs would try to slide through the rope.

"It's definitely... resourceful," He noted.

I beamed. "There! That's it! Don't say another word about it!"

He opened his mouth and I covered my ears. He rolled his eyes and said something but I couldn't make it out. I dropped my hands.

"What? Did you say you underestimated me? It looked like you said you underestimated me."

"He said you'd have to test it!" Isaac called.

We turned, having both forgotten he was still in the hole.

I looked back at Derek. "Test what?"

"You're going to run the course, and be the first to test what you built."

I looked up at it.

"What's the matter?" Derek smirked. "Doubting the efficacy of your obstacle?"

I smacked his shoulder. "Shut up!"

"Guys?" The top of Isaac's head appeared. He reached over the edge of the hole and held his hand up. "Help?"

We turned away. "You'll have eight minutes," Derek told me as we walked towards the start.

"Guys!"

"That's nothing! I'd gotten down to half that time before."

"I still think you were cheating," Derek grumbled.

"Prove it," I boldly dared, and he scowled because we both knew he'd already tried and failed. "I'll finish it in seven!" I asserted, causing Derek to snort loudly.

"If you do, I'll let you test drive my car tomorrow."

I gasped and Derek kept walking. Eagerly, I caught up with him. "Seriously!?"

He gave me a wry look. "You'll never make it."

"Challenge accepted!"

There was a loud thud from where Isaac was apparently trying to run and jump out of the hole he'd dug. He groaned and Derek and I shared an amused smirk.

"Alright, start the obstacle in three… two…"

xxx

I ducked out of the corridor and looked up at my obstacle. Climbing the ladder was easy. It was stepping off the ladder and onto the first peg that sucked.

Derek was right about needing to secure it; as soon as I reached out for the rope the ladder tipped back and I lost my balance on it. It fell back with a large crash and I was forced to leap and grab the rope just like I did earlier in the obstacle. I swung wide, dangling from the rope, and Isaac made a noise of panic.

I looked down to see him pressed against a wall of the hole. "Are you kidding me?" I snapped.

Derek called out my current time. "Three minutes, twenty eight seconds!"

I growled loudly and lifted myself up, placing a foot on the peg. Looking up, I leaned into the swing and reached out to grasp the next rope, stepping quickly onto the next peg. I kept going with the swing and stepped onto the next peg, which slid under my foot and my ankle twisted.

I yelped loudly and pulled myself up. Then I scooted the peg back down into its rightful place and swung out to the next one. If I kept the pressure on the pegs light and held most of my weight off of them, they didn't slide nearly as much. I continued this technique until I reached the last one.

I swung far and grabbed the ladder at the end. It almost fell but I kept a tight grip on it and gasped when my focus on the ladder compromised the hold I had on the rope, and the peg slid out from under my foot.

I lost my balance and squeaked when I lost grip of both the ladder and the rope, and dropped like a stone.

Landing on my back on the hard, unforgiving dirt hurt probably just as much as one would imagine. The wind was knocked out of me and I wheezed and looked over at Isaac, who stood nearby with wide eyes.

"That could've gone better," He told me, sympathetically.

I scowled. "Shit," I rasped. "That… was dangerous! I could've broken my neck!"

"You could have," He agreed.

"What have I done?" I said, looking up at the obstacle in horror.

Derek's face appeared over the edge of the hole. "I like it," He declared.

I scoffed and turned on my side, coughing into the dirt. "Of course you do," I muttered.

xxx

"So… Ten minutes, huh?" Isaac asked.

I turned my head to glare at him. We sat in lawn chairs right next to each other. "You couldn't even get out of the hole _you_ dug, cornstalk."

He sank down into his lawn chair and grumbled some not so nice things about me, and I rolled my eyes and proceeded to ignore him.

Derek approached me from the side. "I fixed the ladders. They shouldn't be an issue anymore."

I grunted and kicked at the floor.

"Here."

A card fell into my lap. I sat up and grabbed it, turning it over. All my bitterness about failing my own obstacle fell into the back of my mind. The only thing that mattered was this, the card in my hand. It was the picture of me.

"That's not my signature," I frowned.

"Whoa, does that say Hale?"

"What!?" I stood out my chair and waved the card at him. "Derek! What the hell is this?"

He seemed to be expecting this reaction, and he must have had a response prepared, because he was completely unperturbed as he said, "How else are you supposed to explain not using your own last name?"

"I don't know! Are we married?"

"You're _married?"_ Isaac gaped.

"It's not—" Derek broke off with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Imagine the Sheriff arresting you. Imagine literally anyone who knows you needing to see your driver's license. Now, if I had put Jones, or Smith, or any other random last name on there, how would you explain that?"

"I don't know!" I threw a hand up. "How about, _I changed my name!? Fuck off, don't ask me any more questions?_ "

"That would require petitioning with a civil court, and you'd have to put an ad in the paper declaring that you were changing your name, and it could take up to three months. I thought the whole issue _was_ your last name?"

"It is, but—"

"Then how would broadcasting your last name to everyone be a good idea?"

I paused and looked down at the card. "But… it has to be Hale?"

"It makes the most sense," Derek told me. "If we got married all you'd have to do is start using my last name."

"That's it?"

He nodded. "See?"

I touched the top of my hair and slowly shook my head as I processed the information "But… we're married?"

"Don't be so dramatic," Derek said, rolling his eyes.

"But we're _married!_ "

"People get divorced all the time," He waved off.

"How can you be so casual about this!?"

I followed him as he walked towards the cart. "Because it had to be done."

"That's it? That's all you have to say about it? _It had to be done?"_

"What do you want me to say?" He prompted, suddenly turning to give me his full attention. I hesitated and floundered at the direct question. "Do you want to file for an annulment already? Do you really want to go through that process?"

"I don't know! You don't?"

"I don't have _time_ to do all that!" Derek burst. "Believe it or not, Lainey, my world does not revolve around you! The full moon is tomorrow night, or did you already forget? I have preparations to make! Isaac is nowhere near ready! I have to find another beta! I have to train two of you now!"

"I can help with all that!" I said. "Derek, I hear what you're saying, but _married?"_

"It's not a real marriage, Lainey. It's just a temporary fix."

I stared at him. Silence echoed through the depot. He stared back, like he was waiting for me to make another comment, daring me to challenge him again.

"It's not real," I slowly repeated, hesitantly.

" _Obviously_ ," He snapped. "Unless you're secretly in love with me."

I scoffed loudly. "Shut up."

He waved a hand vaguely. "Any more questions?"

I crossed my arms and shrugged. "I guess not," I said, sounding uncharacteristically shy.

Derek's face lost some of its heat. "I didn't know it would bother you this much."

I looked away and cleared my throat, going to sit in one of the lawn chairs. "Why would it? It's just a card." It's just my identity.

He watched me for another beat. "Do I really need to apologize for this? This is what you wanted."

"This—" I broke off, my eyes sparking with rage that I quickly slammed a lid on. I expelled a breath through my nose. "Thank you, Derek. How much do I owe you?"

"What?" He frowned, blinking at the question.

"Money? How much money, Derek? I know this had to be expensive. So how much did it cost to fake our marriage?"

He shrugged and turned to step through the cart. "Don't worry about it," He said over his shoulder. "What's mine is yours, right?"

I drew in a deep breath and sighed, leaning my elbows on my knees. The card stared up at me, the new, shorter last name looking out of place next to Elaine.

"Congratulations?" Isaac said from beside me, his hands in his pockets. He'd stood at some point during our argument.

I slowly lifted my head to glare at him. He sprung back when I lunged and he darted away. "Get out of here!" I growled, and Isaac retreated through the cart with his hands up.

I sighed loudly again and threw myself back in the lawn chair to stare at the card some more.

* * *

 _Please, LEAVE A REVIEW and let me know what you think!_


	11. Chapter 11

_Loved all the reviews! Thank you guys so much! Keep them coming! As a reward, and as an apology for the delay, here is a pretty long update._

 _I'll say one thing and then you can start. I've been SUPER addicted to the game Night In The Woods lately. Several scenes/lines are inspired by the dialogue and some scenes from that game_ _:)_ _Just pointing that out. Okay. Happy Reading!_

* * *

"Don't stop!" Derek yelled.

I doubled over and panted loudly, sweat covering every square inch of my body. My chest burned and I shook my head. "I can't! I… This… this is impossible!"

"You can! You have to!"

I panted out a grunt, my voice breaking, and my hair shook as I shook my head. It had grown enough that my sweaty bangs kept getting in my eyes and irritating them. Irritably, I gave a pathetic, frustrated pout as I pawed at my sweaty hair that was now too long to stay out of the way but too short to tie back.

"You need to focus," Derek rumbled, annoyed at my diverted attention. "You keep stopping. Don't stop!"

"I can't focus!" I practically hissed. "I'm gonna shave my fucking head!"

Derek's face changed to something akin to horror. "No you will not!"

I laughed loudly, unable to quite catch my breath enough to give it its full effect, and shook my head again. "What makes you think you get…" huff, "a say?"

"If you shave your head, I'll shave mine," Derek suddenly threatened, making me stop altogether and gawk at him.

I took a shallow, unsatisfying breath before darkly murmuring, "You wouldn't?"

He raised a stubborn eyebrow. "I won't if you won't."

I grunted in frustration. What a shitty, manipulative pact. He thinks he can control me so easily? I'll wait until he's asleep and shave his head first, let him see just how easily the tables could turn. But the thought of Derek without hair was disconcerting. I think all of his power is kept in his hair. I can't be the reason he loses his power. "Deal. You know I'm not eighteen, right?"

"What?" Derek's face scrunched at the randomness of that question. He stepped out of the shade of the cart I was currently pulling by a length of chain tied around my waist, and the sun didn't do his complexion any favors. But it did make me realize his hair was dark brown instead of black, as I'd originally thought. "What does that have to do with moving the cart?"

"Nothing! I mean, how can we be married?" I flapped my hands and gestured vaguely. "You have to be _eighteen_ to be married!"

"Seriously?" He pointed angrily at the cart. "We don't have all day for you to keep bringing this up!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, are my questions about our marriage _inconvenient_ to you?"

"Yes! As a matter of fact, they are! It's already almost noon and we still have to prepare the carts to hold you two tonight."

"What's wrong with where they're at?" I breathlessly sighed, wiping at the sweat that dripped down my brow. I gestured at the one I was pulling and its proximity to the woods. "Seems fine to me."

"If either of you were to bust out you'd run straight into the woods. I need to move them closer to the warehouse so it'll be easier to capture you if that happens."

"If we're at risk to bust out why don't you just keep us in the warehouse to begin with?"

"Keeping you in the warehouse will be a last resort," He said. "Being outside so you can actually see the moon is an important part of the transformation. Especially the first one."

"Did you change my date of birth on the marriage certificate?" I prodded.

Derek stared at me for a long moment. Long enough to make me shift uncomfortably and almost enough to make me change the subject. As I opened my mouth to do so, he started towards me.

I stood straight and arranged to dodge a hit. I wasn't prepared for him to come right up on me, nearly chest-to-chest, and reach around me into my pocket. His scent overwhelmed me and suddenly all I could focus on was the smell of his skin, clean and warm and close, and my heart was in my throat and I put a hand on his chest but instead of pushing him away I found myself clutching his shirt. I had to force my hand not to pull him closer.

I blinked in surprise when I saw my license in his hand. He turned it to face me but I kept my gaze locked on his and he said, "Listen closely, because this will be the first and only time I will ever offer this."

I blinked again at the intensity of his stare. He lifted the card and the edge of the plastic glinted in the sun.

"Do you want me to get rid of this?"

I gasped and lurched forward to grab his arm and yank it down, prying the card from his fingers. "Don't you dare," I growled, and Derek watched me closely and his face lost some of its edge. He nodded once.

"Are you ready to work?" He asked, and instead of snatching his arm from my grasp like I expected, he took advantage of the tight grip I used and pulled his arm towards him so I was leaning in until our noses were close enough to touch. "Or did you have more _questions_ for me?"

"I'll get to work as soon as you stop distracting me, Hale."

"Distracting you?" He smirked, and the abrupt change threw me off guard. "Is that what I've been doing?"

"You know exactly what you've been doing," I glowered, suddenly feeling panicky and put on the spot.

I let go of him and tried to step away but Derek just blocked my path, apparently very interested in this unusually evasive behavior I tried to hide. An expression I've never seen him wear before changed his face then. Like he was caught up in a game he couldn't resist, his lips curled into this most infuriating grin and he lowly baited, "What's the matter? Am I bothering you, Hale?"

Confusion. Stunned confusion, and I looked at him to check if I'd heard correctly—but yes, that smug face meant he had in fact just deliberately called me _Hale_ —I lunged forward and Derek took a graceful step back. When I went to pursue him, the chain snapped to attention around my waist and I was yanked to a sudden stop like a dog on a leash. Derek seemed to thoroughly enjoy this position.

"Oooohh," I growled. "When I get my hands on you—" Lifting my leg, I leaned into a step and grit my teeth against the massive weight of the cart behind me. The chains strained and the metal groaned loudly, and there came a stuttering click as the whole structure inched forward behind me.

As I moved, Derek moved, and we made slow progression along the track. "What were you going to say?" He made a show of walking around in front of me, showing how he could make several exaggerated passes while I'd yet to fully take a step, and shook his head with a loud sigh. "You're going too slow, _Hale_. Come on, I really don't want to have to make Isaac finish _your_ job, but if it hits three o'clock and you're still not finished, I will."

xxx

I'm starting to think Derek has a fetish. At first, I teased him endlessly over the plethora of restraints he'd claimed to gather specially for full moon. But the more he revealed the more I started to feel like the jokes I made weren't as ridiculous as the things he had actually obtained.

"Does every jacket you buy have to be leather?" I smartly quipped, holding the black leather straitjacket aloft to make my point. Derek sent me an unimpressed glare and I said, "Up until now it's basically been a joke, but now I'm saying this out of genuine curiosity. Are you into bondage, Derek?"

"During the full moon I am," He smoothly replied, totally unaffected by my line of questioning. This encouraged me.

"But I mean… are you into it? Sexually?"

Finally, he dropped his hands from the walls of the cart where he'd been securing a set of chains. Derek turned to raise his eyebrows at me. "Are you really asking me what I like?"

I smirked wolfishly. "Evidently."

He stared at me for a long moment. Finally, he was apparently determined to make me feel as uncomfortable as any rational human being should have been under these circumstances, because he cocked his head at me and his eyes crawled down me for a moment before focusing back on mine, and my confident smirk flickered. "Are _you_ into it?"

For a second I forgot how to breathe properly. Suddenly I was flushed bright red and I made a big show of scoffing, looking away. "What? That's—you're dodging the question."

"If I wanted to restrain you, do you really think I'd need to use chains?" He asked, his gaze unflinching even in the midst of that provocative question. I cleared my throat.

"Well what else would you use?"

He glanced away for a moment like he thought the question was stupid. "My hands…"

Stubbornly, I persevered, though I was now way out of my depths. "But then you couldn't use your hands. How would you…"

He raised a single dark eyebrow and I found that I couldn't speak.

 _Oh, my god._ I tried to keep all emotion off my face but if his deeply amused expression was anything to go by, I was failing miserably. He seemed extremely content at just how quickly he'd managed to flip the script and he stood slowly, making my heart race as he advanced upon me, and I actually had to stop myself from taking a step back when he moved forward.

He didn't stop until he loomed over me. "Lainey," He murmured, eyeing a strand of my hair that was tickling my eyebrow. "Would you…" He leaned closer, until our shirts brushed together. "Hand me that blowtorch beside you?"

I held my breath and blinked rapidly. Sure enough, the blowtorch sat on the table beside me. It was well within both of our reach, but he was instructing _me_ to pick it up and hand it to him. What the fuck was he doing?

I narrowed my eyes and he raised his eyebrow, as if he couldn't possibly understand why I would be provoked by such an innocent request, or daring me to admit I felt pushed too far—but then he would win.

I opened my mouth to tell him to get the damn thing himself when the door far off across the classification yard was opened.

Isaac. I knew it was him by the long, hesitant gait. I went to step away but Derek's arm reached up and he grabbed the wall beside my face, blocking my path.

Slowly, I turned to glare at him through narrowed eyes. The corners of his mouth stretched into something that wasn't quite a grin and his eyes flickered tellingly to the blowtorch. He quirked his brow higher. "Please?"

Isaac's footsteps were close now—he was across the yard and it would only be a matter of time before he stepped up within view. I snatched the blowtorch up and thrust it at Derek's chest with a growl. "Only because you asked so _nicely_ ," I hissed, and he seemed to want to laugh.

He smothered an amused grin when I pushed his arm down and stepped around him to scowl viciously at Isaac as soon as he stepped within view of the cart.

"Whoa," Isaac said at my face. "What?" He glanced at Derek. "What did I do?"

My face burned hotly, like I was standing inches from a raging bonfire. Derek practically sang with unshed laughter behind me. I could feel his gaze on the back of my head briefly before he addressed Isaac.

"Nothing. The full moon makes us… touchy."

I whirled around and if it were possible I would've breathed fire onto him for his choice of words. Derek turned his attention onto Isaac and to an outsider it would seem he was ignoring me, but I knew his lack of response was intentional because he knew it was worse than acknowledging my outrage. "Any trouble at school?"

Isaac wasn't an idiot. He picked up on the tension and likely suspected there was more to it than a simple 'full moon' excuse. He let it go. "Failed a pop quiz in Chemistry," He said, and Derek rolled his eyes.

"That's not quite what I meant."

"Did you attack anyone?" I supplied, knowing the way Derek's mind worked. "Did you get into any fights or feel the need to—" I paused and forced myself not to look at Derek. I was going to say rip anyone's clothes off. But I didn't. Derek's presence weighed heavily beside me and I cleared my throat. "Attack anyone?"

Isaac's eyebrows twitched down. "You said that twice."

"It's an important question," I quickly dodged. "We can take that as a no?"

He shrugged. "I broke a beaker in class today. That's why I failed the quiz. Had to pretend I dropped it." He looked between us and paused. "Why… did you?"

Derek snorted and I grit my teeth. "Derek always drives me insane." I crossed my arms with an insincere smile and tilted my head. "Nothing unusual there."

Derek changed the subject. "Well we've almost finished preparing this cart. There's another one that will be for you, Isaac. It's done. If we get done early like I think we might, I'll have you two run the obstacle course until sundown."

I groaned, earning a disapproving glare from Derek, and Isaac noticed the restraints that were covering the table nearby. "Whoa… aren't these…"

"Kinky?" I finished with a knowing smirk. I could sense Derek rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose behind me.

Isaac glanced away from Derek, to me, to the table. "I was going to say excessive, but now that you mention it that too."

I laughed and nodded. "Hell, yeah."

"No," Derek countered, sounding much more mature than me. I scowled. "If we're lucky they'll be just enough to keep you two inside these carts tonight."

"So that's the grand plan?" I asked, going to sit on the edge of the cart. I let my legs dangle over and swung them back and forth leisurely, tilting my head back in the warm sun. "Gonna tie us up real good, but then what? You batten down the hatches and keep watch?"

Derek considered it. "More or less," He agreed.

"Mmm," I mused, kicking my feet. "Sounds boring."

Isaac spoke up. "Won't you need to restrain yourself too?"

I snorted and Isaac frowned at me. I mouthed the first sentence with Derek, as he said, "No, my job is to make sure you idiots don't kill someone. I'll be fine. This isn't my first full moon."

"Okay, but how can you expect to keep us both under control?" Isaac pointed out.

I paused with Derek and then mouthed along again as he said, "I'm the Alpha. It's my job."

"We should make signs for you," I suggested. "So in case for the next full moon, if we have a new beta, and they ask those same questions, you can just hold them up."

"Just one that says, 'I'm the alpha' would probably do it," Derek suggested in a surprisingly jovial tone.

Isaac snorted and I grinned and nodded. "Done."

Derek shook his head. "Since apparently Lainey is finished helping for the afternoon, do you want to grab that piece of metal so I can weld it to the wall, Isaac?"

I waved him off and put my head back to let the sun warm my face as Isaac obediently moved around me. I figured since I moved the both damn carts all the way across the yard, the least Isaac could do was hold a piece of metal in place.

xxx

That night was significantly cooler out than the day had been. Without the warmth of the sun the breeze was biting. It cut straight through all the layers of clothes I wore and chilled me.

I shivered slightly and stepped deeper into the cart. Derek had already welded Isaac in his cart for the night. Now, it was my turn.

It was hard to imagine this failing, but Derek was practically frantic by his standards. He easily leapt onto the cart beside me. "Go sit against the wall," He said, moving from chain to chain and testing them each with a rough pull.

They clanked noisily and slammed against the wall. It was loud and I felt a sense of dread and forbearing settle over me. Seeing it now, feeling the inexplicable, tense charge in the night air, feeling my own emotions that were so intense that I was about to burst at any given second, I knew that Derek hadn't been exaggerating this whole time. He really couldn't have overstated the effect the full moon had.

It's like the whole day had been leading to this point. Like I'd been strapped into a roller coaster and we'd been gradually climbing higher and higher, closer to the point of no return, and now I teetered at the top of the hill. I could see the end now.

I settled against the wall. The locks were heavy and cold on my skin and Derek tightened them as much as he could. The ones on my wrists held my arms apart. I yanked at them but it didn't seem to do any good. Next was the chain that wrapped across my torso. Again, it was snug, and no matter how much I wiggled it held.

"You should like, go into construction," I said, which said a lot about how weird I felt since I just used the word _like_ in a completely useless context for what may have been the first time in my life.

Derek noticed it. He stopped snapping locks into place at my feet and looked up. "What? Why?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "Honestly I just felt the need to say something to fill the silence." Because I was steadily growing more and more unsure, as my emotions continued to climb and something close to unbidden and unwarranted anger started taint everything I felt. "Will it always feel like this?" I asked, my voice gruffer than I'd intended.

Derek studied me for a second. His gaze fell and he nodded.

I snorted. "Reassuring."

His hand still grasped my ankle as it'd been while he restrained me, but now he softened his grip to one that was more comforting. "I'll teach you to control it."

That seemed like an impossible feat. It was all I could do to sit still. Even as I thought it, I realized my arms were pulling against the chains at the wall. I stilled them and held my breath for a second. "I've never been a very fast learner," I practically whispered.

His hand was warm against my ankle as he turned his palm to click the lock into place. "Don't fight it. It'll hurt more. I'll be here, but this is something you have to do on your own."

I took a deep breath and nodded, feeling like my skin was crawling and like the longer we waited to less control I had over my actions. My leg jerked because I was struck with the overwhelming urge to get out from Derek's reach. "Okay. Hurry up, hurry up!"

It was another two minutes before he finished chaining me in place. He stepped away, and I was free to struggle against my restraints in vain while he closed and locked the door.

I could smell the metal as it heated and melted, smell the burning material and the heat of the sparks. The wind shifted and it howled as it snuck through the cracks that Derek had yet to seal and my heart raced.

Involuntary grunts kept escaping my lips and I found it was difficult to keep still. Panic and anger clashed together and produced a frantic sense of urgency I couldn't shake, no matter how hard I tried. The chains clicked and thudded against the wall as I struggled against them.

"Derek," I called. "Derek, stop!"

The welding continued and suddenly I was breathing too fast.

"Derek!"

"Stop fighting it, Lainey!" He called. "It's—"

A flair of pain flashed through my head and I couldn't suppress a surprised, agonized growl. I was uncomfortably hot—too hot, like I was sitting in a window with three layers of winter coats and a thick fleece blanket covering my face and I couldn't catch any fresh air and I was suffocating and it came on so _fast_.

There was no real warning. It was sudden and panicked and overpowering. The chains were choking me and I couldn't get them off no matter how hard I tried, and pressure built in my head until I was screaming in panic and in the very, very back of my mind there was a single, rational thought.

 _Derek's gonna be so pissed._

The chain on my wrist snapped.

xxx

 _A wall blocked my path. It was just like that obstacle course, except there would be no climbing or going around this one. I was enclosed in a tight space. I needed out and I needed out now because there was space to breathe and run outside and I needed to run but there was a wall._

 _I ran at the wall and it shuddered. I did it again and again, the warning yells from outside the wall only cheering me on. And it didn't take long before the wall broke and I tumbled into the ground and the night sky greeted me with open arms._

 _I twisted out of the reach of hands and ran—ran away from the red glowing eyes and the grabbing hands that tried to chase me._

 _I was free. Free was good. And I was gone._

xxx

I woke to the smell of blood. Sharp and potent, the metallic, rusty scent pervaded my grogginess and by the time I sat up I was alert. A dry leaf fell from somewhere near my face and fluttered to the ground.

I was on the concrete floor of the warehouse. There was blood all over me. It stained my clothes and covered my hands and… heavy, sick dread pooled in my gut.

"It's yours." Derek's voice startled me and I gasped and sprung to my feet.

When I swayed, he was there to catch me. He put me upright on my feet and kept a tight hold of my arms. "Wha?" I managed, disoriented. "What happened?" I looked around.

We were in the office. It was… what time was it? It felt like I'd been asleep for weeks.

"Before I had to chase you out of someone's backyard and herd you back here, or after?"

I paused and blinked, my brain still moving sluggishly. "Um… before?"

His face twitched in irritation.

"No," I quickly corrected. "After?"

He rolled his eyes. "Are you feeling okay?" He pushed me back and turned me side to side, checking for something. Injuries?

I looked down. "I can't feel my feet. What happened to my shoes? And my socks?" I wiggled my toes, which were covered in dirt.

He sighed loudly. "I have no idea."

"Ugh," I pouted. "I really liked those!"

He scrunched his face. "You're taking this… well."

I considered his point and patted myself down. Then, running a hand over my hair, I took a deep breath. "Yeah, I think a lifetime of addiction has me oddly prepared for this lifestyle. Believe it or not, this is not the first time I've woken up covered in blood with no memory."

He looked like he couldn't quite believe it, but he had to ask. "What happened?"

I smirked. "Absinthe. I guess I really wanted to go to bed and when no one would come with me I decided to swing an axe around. Where's Isaac? Did he bust out too?" I asked, looking around.

Derek slowly let me go, seeing first that I would stand on my own. I only swayed slightly but otherwise found that not only did I have no headache, but instead of throwing up, I was hungry. Starving, actually.

"You should sit down," he advised. "You're going to be exhausted today."

"Really?" I bounced on my feet and stretched out my arms. "I feel fine."

"You shouldn't."

I had to stop to take a breath, and my head rushed. "I do."

"Really?" He asked, skeptically. "Would you want to run the obstacle course, then?"

I gave him a horrified look and he smirked in satisfaction. When had he traded in his glare for a smirk? I scowled at him.

"Sit down, Lainey. I'll get Isaac out of the cart and we can go to the diner."

I gasped at the promise of the diner and submissively plopped on the ground. "Hurry up!"

He snorted. "I would suggest changing clothes, unless you want to be forced to answer some very uncomfortable questions."

"Oh." I looked dumbly down at my ruined clothes. It looked like I'd gotten in a fight with a tiger, and… lost. I sighed heavily and Derek advised me to take it slow as he went to retrieve Cornstalk from wherever he'd passed out.

I trudged down the stairs. The door to the classification yard shut and I wondered just were exactly Isaac had ended up last night. I mused about potential spots as I slowly made my way down the steep stairs, around the obstacle course and through the cart. I stopped to take a breath in the doorway of the cart and looked up.

It was well into the morning. The sun was high again, and it was especially bright in the warehouse since there must have been fewer clouds. The seasons were changing.

A random thought struck me. I wondered if Ray could see the sun wherever he was, or if they kept him locked up tight in some damp cell, far, far from the sun and everything pleasant or fresh. I hoped so.

With a hampered mood, I sighed heavily and dragged myself to the trunk. My clothes were truly shredded. I knew my jacket was ruined. I knew my pants were, too. They came apart in pieces as I peeled them away from my skin.

I winced at the feeling of the dried blood that flaked away and fell to the ground like little horrific sprinkles. "Nightmare sprinkles," I muttered, scattering them with my bare foot. "Crap…"

I turned around. Just because I put a fresh change of clothes on wouldn't hide the fact that I was still spotted with blood. It was all over my hands and wrists and across parts of my torso, some spots clinging in my hair.

The cooler was running low on water bottles. I stood up when there came the sound of the door opening again, and before I had the chance to really compose myself the boys were already down the stairs and within sight. The thing about the door to the classification yard? It was kind of high up, and kind of directly in front of me.

I squinted my eyes at the light that streamed in.

Isaac made a noise of surprise and embarrassment that was cut short by Derek shoving him back out the door. It slammed shut, and we were once again trapped in the dim morning light that streamed down through the windows.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Derek growled. He turned his back but I felt the full brunt of his ire even with only half of his face in view.

I lowered my hand from where it'd been blocking the sun. "Avoiding uncomfortable questions?"

"I meant change in the office, you idiot!" He boomed.

I laughed. "Why are you so upset?"

"You can't just strip naked in the middle of the warehouse, Lainey!"

"Why? Does this bother you?" I asked, tilting my head. I put my hand on my hip and Derek's temper seemed ready to boil over.

"It bothered Isaac!"

"He didn't seem bothered," I goaded. " _You_ seem bothered."

"I am bothered!"

"Good!" I exclaimed. He whirled around and my instincts were to cover my self, and my hands twitched but I clenched them into fists and glared at him defiantly. His eyes burned into mine and I felt my chest and neck grow hot with a blush, but pretended it wasn't happening. "Then think of this pay back."

"Pay back!?" He exclaimed. "For what?"

"The blowtorch!"

He paused. I saw understanding flood his features as soon as the memory came to him, how he'd tried so hard to make me uncomfortable, and I think he looked at my neck, which I knew from experience was probably flushed with red spots of embarrassment. I clenched my jaw. "We can't do this, Lainey."

"Do what?" I asked, crossing my arms. "What is that we're doing?"

"You have to make everything a competition!" He threw his hand out. "Look at you! This isn't—"

"Fair?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. "Oh, it's fair. It's very fair. You've been doing this same crap to me lately and you know it. At least I'm honest about it. All you have to do is admit it and I'll stop."

"I was going to say appropriate. It's not _appropriate_."

I let a grin play at my lips. "What about me have you found thus far to suggest that I care what is and is not appropriate?"

A muscle in his jaw jumped. His nostrils flared, and I watched him clench his fists. I couldn't believe he was even continuing the conversation. I couldn't believe he was still standing there. Through his teeth, he said, "I'm leaving—"

"Really?" I asked. Derek glowered at me but his gaze never wandered any lower than my neck. Irritated, I grabbed the water bottle I'd set on the crate beside the cooler.

"What are you doing?"

Wordlessly, I unscrewed the bottle. I lifted it up to him. "Cheers," I mocked, and took a drink. I was doing it to emphasize how casual I wanted him to think I felt doing this, to screw with him and really unnerve him, as he had done to me, but the second the water hit my tongue I realized I was in fact parched.

I tipped the bottle back and it crinkled as I squeezed it and didn't stop until a third of it was left. Then, I dumped some on my hands and began to clean the blood from them.

I kept going until the bottle was empty. I grabbed another one and when I looked back at Derek I realized he'd turned around again at some point. The door rattled as if someone was opening it and he snatched it shut. "Don't!" Derek exclaimed. "Not yet."

I kept up the show long enough to rinse the majority of the blood from my skin. There were still stains left but for the most part I was clear of any lingering, obvious traces, and I shook myself to flick some water off.

"Are you finished?" He growled, his head turning slightly. He had his fists pressed to the door and he leaned against it with his head ducked down.

I brushed the hair from my eyes. "Yes—"

I barely got the word to pass my lips and he yanked the door open and darted through it, slamming it shut behind him. Alone, I stared at the closed door and listened to Derek grumble at Isaac about waiting for another few minutes for me to change. Isaac asked what happened and Derek growled.

I shook my head and dressed.

xxx

This was too good. I get now why Derek does it all the time. No wonder he was always stripping his shirt off in front of people. He could barely look at me now without his gaze eventually wandering.

Every time I caught him, I smirked, and he scowled and looked away. It made me feel… giddy. Powerful. Silly, I know, but there you have it.

It was starting to grate on him. He hadn't spoken much since we left the warehouse. Isaac was many things but I wouldn't say oblivious was one of them. I would, however, say that he was terrible at keeping his mouth shut.

"So does that happen… like, a lot?" He wondered aloud, waving a speared chunk of pineapple around on the end of his fork.

Derek turned to blink at him, his eyebrows knitting together. "What?"

Isaac's eyes trailed over to me and he cleared his throat. His fork dropped to gesture below my face. "The—nakedness. Does she do that a lot?"

I rubbed my lips together and shrugged, deferring to Derek.

He took a moment to put as much force behind the response as he could, his eyes boring into mine. " _No_."

"Oh, fuck's sake," I rolled my eyes. "Both of you can relax."

Isaac looked mildly curious about what I had to say but Derek just looked incensed.

I looked away from Derek. "It was to make a point," I told Isaac. "Derek knows what I'm talking about."

"What is she talking about?" Isaac asked, looking away from me to study Derek, who slammed his drink down.

"Ignore her," He finally cracked. I sat up straight and Isaac's eyebrows raised as he tried not to look at me. Derek slid his plate away and changed the subject. "I have a plan today, and you two aren't part of it. You need to train. I'll be away from the depot until late tonight. Try not to burn the place down, it'll be a pain in my ass to find somewhere else to lay low."

With that, he smacked a couple of bills down on the table, closed his wallet, threw me one last, potent glare, and got up from the table. Isaac and I watched as Derek threaded through the morning rush and escaped onto the street.

"It's kind of hard to ignore her when she's naked," Isaac replied to Derek's now empty seat, apparently stuck on that little detail.

I offered him a shameless grin, crossing my legs. "So what do you want to do today?"

He blinked and raised an eyebrow. "Um—" He looked around. When he turned back, his eyes were bright yellow and he was trying really hard to focus on my eyes and not let his gaze wander.

I frowned at him. "Hey!" I snapped my fingers in his face, making him lean back and bat my hand away. "Snap out of it, Cornstalk!"

"Hey—" He blinked and his eyes were back to their normal blue color, significantly more annoyed than they usually were. "I'm good, I'm sorry, I'm good."

I shook my head and popped a french fry into my mouth. "Wanna go fuck some shit up?"

He hesitated. "Uh… sure?"

"Angie!" I called. The girl in question turned away from the counter she leaned across and stopped mid-conversation with Antonio to look at me. I waved her over and she sped-walked to our table. I pointed down at the bills Derek left. "Will that cover a bag of bread rolls?"

She frowned. "You hate the rolls here."

"This is true," I swiftly nodded. "Answer the question."

She rolled her eyes at my bluntness. "Yes."

"Sweet! Bring us a bag and keep whatever change is left."

Angie cringed at Isaac. "Sure you wanna be friends with someone who gives shitty tips to her favorite waitresses?"

"I don't think I have much of a choice—" He flinched when I kicked him under the table.

"Dude!" I exclaimed. "You're supposed to have my back!"

"Okay! Okay…" He threw a five-dollar bill onto the table and I beamed. "Everyone happy?"

Angie smiled sweetly at him. "You're way too good for her."

I rolled my eyes. "I would have contributed!"

"You still could," Angie pointed out, unimpressed.

I scowled at her. "Don't get greedy."

She snorted pocketed the cash, and went to retrieve the requested rolls.

xxx

As I walked along the tall bridge and Isaac followed behind me, I carried the bag of rolls under my arm. The park was still familiar to me, and I recalled the last conversation I had when I was here. It'd been on the phone with Sheriff concerning Ray. How things had changed since then.

Families were out and about. People were exercising in groups and I stopped us to watch a dance class of women being instructed by a tiny, energetic, muscular girl with a high ponytail.

"Soccer moms," I said, pointing out how they all had similar haircuts. "Does that come free at salons when you turn thirty-five? Do they start handing out AARP flyers and giving you bad blonde _why is my son on the bench_ highlights?"

Isaac laughed. "Oh, oh, I got one, okay… uh, hold on."

I waited with an amused grin as his looked at the group of middle aged women wearing bright tank tops and sports shirts with their kids' numbers on them.

He nodded and put his hand out. "Okay, okay, when one of them goes to a car lot do they automatically get shown minivans and do their keys come with complimentary cartoon family window stickers?"

"And they come to Zumba class so they can gossip about the neighbor's scary teen who they caught smoking weed in the backyard last week."

"And they giggle about Shemar Moore and Mark Harmon."

"That silver fox," I snorted. "And they all wear denim Bermuda shorts to the PTA meetings, and afterwards they grab margaritas and always end up asking to speak to the manager."

"And they get mad at their husband for buying new sports cars without asking when that money was going to be put towards their kids' college funds."

"Ahhh, middle class suburban life. How many of them are divorced, you think?"

"Oh, at least half of them," Isaac nodded. He paused and looked at me. "Hey, are you okay with not knowing where Derek is?"

I considered the question as we started up the path towards the bridge again, taking a breath. "Well, I mean, if it's important he'll tell us. Why? Does it bother you?"

"Sort of," he admitted. "Yeah. I mean, we just… last night was…" He trailed off and went to stand against the railing of the bridge. "I don't know. I have questions. And he just took off and who knows if he'll be ready to answer them when he comes back?"

"Like what?"

"Like… what happened, for one. I woke up face down in the train tracks this morning. How did I get out of the cart? Why were you in the warehouse but I wasn't? What will we do next full moon? I wasn't ready for that. I'm not ready for any of this! He said he would help!"

"He's busy," I dismissed. "He's not ignoring us, Isaac. I…" I sighed. "Look, I kind of fucked with him this morning, all right? He's just pissed off right now. He'll be back and he'll answer your questions. Relax."

"Why are you so casual about this?" He said. "None of this is normal and you're walking around naked and—throwing bread to ducks in the park?"

I paused from tossing another chunk of roll into the water. The ducks quacked frantically and converged on the single piece of bread, and I handed him a roll.

"Dude," I said. "Take a breath. Take a roll. And take advantage of the free time we have right now. Because in a few hours, Derek will be back, we will be sweating our asses off begging for mercy."

"I thought he knew what he was doing," Isaac grumbled.

"Don't you trust him?" I asked. "I mean, what did you think this would be? Boot camp?"

"No," he defended, tossing a chunk of bread far off in the water to an outlying duck that was floating alone. It looked around for a moment before craning its neck down to retrieve the piece. "I don't know what I thought. Is he alone?"

"Yeah," I frowned, suddenly growing defensive for reasons I couldn't fully realize. "Is that what this is about? You're disappointed there's not a chain of command? What are you waiting for, counselors with clipboards? You thought it'd be like signing up for summer camp or joining the lacrosse team?"

"No!" He reared back and threw a roll as hard as he could. It went far over the trees at the edge of the water and disappeared.

"Whoa," I muttered, and Isaac sighed. "I really hope that pelts someone on the top of their head."

"Crap." Isaac rubbed his face. "Was it painful for you?" He abruptly asked.

I stopped shredding a roll to look at him. He seemed sheepish, like he wasn't sure how I'd respond but he was hoping I'd say yes. "Painful?" I considered it and looked down at the pile of crumbs under my hand. I brushed it over the railing and watched them scatter across the water. "Not really. I mean, sort of, at first. I felt sick more than anything. Like the worst nightmare I ever had. Sort of like what I think it would feel like to see a tornado coming. There's no running from it, and you can try to hide but you know it's going to plow straight over you and all you can do is clam up and wait till morning."

"That's what you did?" Isaac asked. "You clammed up?"

"I think so," I shrugged. "I don't really remember. But I wasn't in control, that much I know."

"I chased someone," Isaac said.

I sat up and dropped the bag. It dumped out the rolls and some fell into the water, but I didn't look away from him. "Seriously?"

Isaac watched the ducks below and nodded. "Yeah, it was weird."

"Who?"

He shook his head. "I don't even know. All I remember was them running, and feeling like I had to catch them. It was the most important thing to me. I could tell they were scared and it was like… I didn't care. Catching them was all that mattered."

"Whoa," I looked down. "What happened?"

"Derek," He said, looking at me. "He caught me and we fought and somehow we ended up back at the depot. After that it's all a blur. I woke up this morning and—"

"Hey, Lainey," interrupted someone. I turned and saw a rough looking woman. "Where's Kelsey? She didn't show up to hang last week."

Isaac looked between us with interest and the woman eyed him warily. I stepped in front of him slightly. "She's dead."

The expression on her face made me look away. "Shit… are you serious? That's… that's awful. What happened?"

I shrugged and looked down at the water. "Dumb ass OD'd at a house party," I lied. I grabbed Isaac's arm and pulled him back. "Hey, stay safe alright? See ya around."

"Yeah, stay away from Johnny," She said. "Kelsey owed him some shit. He's gonna be looking for her."

"Tell him she's dead!" I exclaimed, pushing Isaac down the bridge.

"Alright," The lady said, putting her hands up. "S'the truth, I guess."

"Bye!"

She waved us off and I grabbed Isaac around the elbow to continue dragging him down the path.

"Don't look at her," I said.

"What? Hey, she's following us."

"Shit," I muttered.

"Lainey, what's—"

"Run!"

I took off and Isaac cursed before joining me. We cut across the grass and started down the hill we'd previously climbed, my boots catching the high, persistent weeds and sliding across soft muddy ground.

"Where are you—"

"Come on!"

We were gaining on the group of soccer moms. The instructor caught sight of us and stopped to frown, her hand up in warning, and as the women turned to look over their shoulders we barreled right through the middle of them.

I vaulted over three of their step-stools and Isaac tripped and nearly fell over one. I grabbed onto his arm to catch him and we tore out of there as fast as we could, high-pitched, offended exclamations following us the whole way.

"Down there!" I said, pointing up the road. "Hurry!"

xxx

We didn't stop running until we came along the parking lot of an abandoned store at the edge of the downtown.

Isaac slumped over on the ground and sprawled across the pavement, groaning from exhaustion.

I sputtered out a laugh and he huffed at me, grinning. Slowly trudging towards him, I fell to my knees and collapsed on the sidewalk beside him. "Why… was… she… chasing," Puff, "us?"

"Drugs," I responded in a sardonic tone. "They're a helluva thing."

"Huh?" He blew.

"Ah, drugs? You know, the narcotic kind? I think Kelsey owed her and her boyfriend Johnny something. And she, uh. Was high on them. Couldn't you tell?"

"She couldn't sit… still. And she talked really… really loud. Is that? What it's like to be… high?"

I shrugged. "You never tried it?"

He shrugged back. "Why are…" He wheezed and uselessly to catch his breath. "Why are you not… panting more?"

"I'm panting," I sighed deeply. "But I guess that wasn't as bad as the runs Derek makes me do."

"Well stop it," He grumbled. "You're… embarrassing me. My pride… is threatened."

"Your pride is fine," I waved off. "It's your ego that's damaged."

"Is there… a difference?" He asked, this time the pause more due to his skeptical tone than to his being out of breath.

"Pride is like a sense of fulfillment. Being proud of something. Ego is your self respect."

He huffed. "Wow. Never thought if it like that."

I reached over to pat his knee. "That says a lot more of you than me."

He snorted. "What's this place?"

I looked over at the empty, dusty store. "I think it used to be one of those dumpy donut shops." I brushed hair out of my eyes. "You know, the one that was run by a Christian couple? Keystone Shoppe, I think it was called."

"Yeah!" Isaac exclaimed. "It was pretty… okay, I guess."

"Mostly the congregation of their church kept it in business. They couldn't keep up with the times. They fell with the rise of the cronut."

"Cronuts are weird."

"They're hip and in demand."

He looked at me from the corner of his eye. "This shop didn't fail because of the overwhelming demand for cronuts in Beacon Hills. I think it's because the husband died from a stroke."

I elbowed him in the leg. "Yeesh. My story is better."

"It was a peaceful death, I think. Anyways. Donuts are either amazing or they're horrible."

"Like pizza."

"Exactly," He nodded. "And this shop could only make good plain, glazed ones. There wasn't enough variety. It was cheaper to pick a box up at the grocery store."

"True."

Isaac paused and sat up to sit beside me, peering up at the dusty, dirty window and the broken sign with some of the letters torn off. "What are we doing here, again?"

"I dunno. Wanna break in?"

"What?" Isaac stared after me as I pushed up from the sidewalk and approached the door. "Wait, seriously?"

I grinned at him over my shoulder. "Did you have Mr. Binglsey for second grade?"

He frowned and slowly stood to join my side. "No."

I cupped my hands and tried to peer through the crack of the newspapers they'd covered the inside of the windows with. "He went to their church. He would bring boxes of donuts every time the whole class got an A on our math tests. And for Thanksgiving, we drew those weird little hand-turkeys and he brought them here to hang up in their windows. Remember?"

" _No_ , I had Mrs. Jones," He said. "She always made us watch documentaries about Abraham Lincoln."

"You were in second grade," I frowned.

"She focused a lot on the Civil War that year. Did you know Lincoln had crippling depression?"

I smirked. "Cool. Mr. Bingsley would have us watch VeggieTales a lot."

"Dude, that's a religious show. I think that was like, illegal," Isaac muttered. He grumbled when I reached down and pried the door open, busting the lock. "Sort of like this…"

"Nah," I waved off. "I didn't mind. I liked the songs."

He lingered in the doorway when I slinked inside. It was smaller than I remembered. The display and the counter were to our immediate right, and not nearly as high up as I thought it would be.

It was all empty now. Some of the glass was broken out of the displays, suggesting that they'd had trouble with people breaking in before, and the floors were covered in dirt. I thought it'd only been out of business for about a year but now that we stood there and I saw the state of disrepair it was in, I thought it must have been a lot longer than I realized.

"Ugh!" I put my hands out. "Keystone George! What have they done to you?"

I was talking, of course, about the shop's mascot. It had been dismantled from the wall behind the counter and was now partially covered in a tarp. But you could still see his cowboy hat sticking out from under the faded green fabric.

I went to yank the tarp off and Isaac winced loudly at the broken, battered anamorphic animal. "What the hell is it supposed to be?"

"It's a… you know! Keystone George!"

"Is it a horse?" He wondered. "It has really floppy ears if it's a horse."

"I'm pretty sure it's a goat?" I guessed. "Don't look at him!" I threw the tarp back over him and tried to block him from view. "He's hideous! They've ruined him!"

Isaac smirked. "This is upsetting you more than I thought it would."

I patted the tarp over the hat and sighed. "Who would just leave him here?" I sniffed indignantly. "Like a used napkin."

"How is it…" He shook his head. "You know what? Never mind."

"Keystone George, we will never tell anyone about what we saw here today. Isn't that right, Isaac?"

He blinked slowly at me, and then looked down at the tarp covered goat-head. "Uh… no way. I'm _dying_ to tell everyone I know that I broke into a donut shop and spoke to a statue goat head this weekend."

"See?" I said to Keystone George. "Nothing to worry about! He's too embarrassed to even acknowledge this happened. We all are."

"Okay, great. Can we go now?"

I stood there and stared down at the tarp. "What if we…"

Isaac frowned at me. "What?"

I looked up at him. "Isaac… I know that I just said I would never tell anyone but I think I've officially changed my mind."

He raised an eyebrow. "That was fast."

"Let's take him back to the depot!"

"What?" Isaac burst. "No way! Derek will freak out!"

I grinned. "Help me carry him!"

"Lainey, no!"

"Aw, come on!" I said, wrapping my hand around the tarp. "Just live a little!"

"This isn't living! This is theft!"

"Crime buddies!"

"No way!" He exclaimed. "This is ridiculous!"

"Oooohhh," I teased. "No, that's okay. I get it. You're too scared. That's fine."

"I'm not going to jail for stealing a statue head!"

"It's cool, I get it. Probably wouldn't make a very good story, anyways. We have better things to do."

Isaac stared at me. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Not until my last dying breath," I shook my head. "And then I'll come back to haunt your grandchildren about it. _'Your grandpa was a coward, Timmy,_ '" I said, using a cliche ghost voice. " _Your grandpa was a cowarrrrrrd!_ "

"Fantastic." He slowly joined me and reached around the other side of the large head, grabbing it under its ear for the best grip. "Let's just get this over with. How far is the depot?"

I beamed at him and grabbed the other side. "Nine blocks! Barely."

"Fantastic."

We lifted him and due to our combined strength, found that it really wasn't too bad. "See? Easy!"

Slowly, we backed up. It took us a few steps to find a rhythm that worked. I steered and he did most of the carrying.

He stopped us. "Wait!"

"What, what?" I stumbled and almost dropped my side. "Isaac! Don't do that!"

"If I do this you have to swear not to call me Cornstalk anymore!"

I threw my head back to roll my eyes and groaned loudly. "Isaaaaaac."

"Nope, that's the deal," He said, bending down to set his side down. "Either you agree to it or you carry this thing back by yourself." He crossed his arms and shrugged his shoulders. "It's your call."

I glared at him for a long moment. He raised an eyebrow. I rolled my eyes again and sighed. "Fine."

He grinned at me, his dimples poking out. "I knew you'd see it my way."

I sighed again, more dramatically this time as he lifted his half. "It'll so be worth it to see the expression on Derek's face."

Isaac hadn't considered this, apparently. "I can't decide if I'm excited or scared."

"That's what we call _anticipation_ my dear Watson."

He sighed loudly as we backed into the street. "Just remember this was your idea."

"Crime buddies!"

He rolled his eyes. "Please don't say that."

xxx

"What if someone stops us?" He asked, where we waited at a light. "What if a cop stops us?"

"I have a driver's license now," I unhelpfully supplied.

Isaac shot me a strange look. "How does that help in any way?"

"It helps! Believe me! It does."

He shook his end of the head. "Would you please tell me what the plan is if someone asks why we're carrying this!?"

"Wing it!" I said. "It's way more believeable if we wing the story."

"That seems like a disaster." Isaac let out a nervous noise of skepticism as we began to cross the street. A little kid in the back seat of the car we passed pointed at us, and his older brother pulled a phone out to video us as we waddled along. "Great," Isaac darkly muttered. "This is going to be posted on Facebook and the owners will see and Sheriff will recognize us and—"

"Isaac," I said, "Dude. Relax. There's a tarp covering his head, remember?"

He looked down at the green fabric as we carefully stepped onto the sidewalk and continued. "This is such a bad idea."

"This is a _great_ idea."

"Oh, my god," Isaac muttered. "Oh my god, oh my god! Crap!"

"What?" I twisted around to try and see behind us. The sight of a police cruiser, stopped at the light on the other side of the street caught my eye. "Crap!"

"Crap! What do we do?"

"Uh!" I looked to the side. There was a restaurant beside us, but if we just walked a little further down there was a club. The sun was just starting to set and people were already lined up. "That way! Hurry! Pretend we're supposed to be going down that alley!" I made a show of pointing down the alley.

"What? No! Why?"

"Sometimes they take decorations for the club through there!" I hissed, pushing at the head to hurry him along. "Go, go!"

The police car slowly pulled away from the light and made a left turn, down our street, headed our way. "Oh crap, oh crap… this was such a bad idea!"

"Shut up!" I hissed through my teeth. "Isaac shut the fuck up!"

We both clamped our mouths shut and hurried down the sidewalk. Some of the people in the line looked at us strangely and I cleared my throat.

"Debbie said it needs to go on the table by the booth in the corner."

"Uh, right," Isaac awkwardly agreed. "The corner."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "Too bad we can't stay," I said, allowing the tarp to slip over the hat of the head slightly. "I love Wild, Wild West night."

The girls closest to us in the line immediately began to whisper about the supposed western theme, and quieted when I asked if we could pass by them.

"Oh, sorry," The red head said. She paused to smirk and look Isaac over, tucking a strand of curled hair behind her ear.

He breathed out an awkward laugh and offered her a weak grin. He nodded at her. "Excuse us."

She giggled like he'd said something charming and scurried out of the way to watch us pass. Amused, I raised an eyebrow at him and he glared at me as we awkwardly crab-walked between them.

The police car slowly cruised past as the girls fell back into line and their attention was split between the cop and us. The music from the club grew louder as we passed into the alley, and I sighed in relief.

"Smooth, kid," I complimented. "Not too bad for your first crime."

"Who's Debbie?" Isaac asked.

"Debbie is always the manager," I shrugged. "You've never noticed that?"

"My mom's name was Debbie."

"Really?" I asked. "What did she do?"

Isaac paused and looked up at me. "She… was the office manager at the high school."

I snorted loudly. "Nice. She died?"

He looked away and nodded, eyeing a dumpster we walked by when it made a strange mechanical whir. We gave it a wide birth and hurried past.

"Mine too," I awkwardly said, feeling the need to fill the silence.

"Do you miss her?" He asked, the least uncomfortable tone I've ever heard him use.

"Not really," I admitted. "I didn't know her, so… No."

"That sucks."

Movement from the top of the building beside us caught my eye. I looked up and frowned because there was nothing there. I shook my head and focused back on Isaac, whom I realized was talking about his mom.

"She was actually… um, a lot like those women at the park. She had that haircut and she went to all of the swim meets."

"Swim meets?" I kept one eye on the building as I kept him engaged in conversation. "Were you on the swim team?"

He shook his head. "I was too young. My brother was. My dad was the coach. It was this whole thing. She loved hosting the parties for the team. I don't think she ever knew they drank, though."

"Wow," I said as we crossed into another alley. "Must have been nice to have someone like that."

He sighed loudly. "Anyways. I think I… wait. Do you hear that? That hissing? What's doing that? Is there a cat?"

"Don't look up," I murmured.

"What?" He looked up.

"Isaac! God damn it!"

He nearly dropped the head. He fumbled to catch it and exclaimed loudly. "What the hell is that!?"

"Relax!" I snapped.

There was a creature, maybe as big as Isaac but more muscular, covered in scales. It looked like a humanoid lizard and it was perched on the roof of the building overhead. I watched it watching us with its head cocked, as it had been for last minute since I'd noticed it.

But it wasn't chasing us. It wasn't trying to kill us. It just seemed… strangely curious.

I nudged the head between us. "Keep moving," I quietly said. "We're starting to freak it out."

The creature's clawed fingers drummed across the edge of the building and it withdrew. Like a lion watching prey from high in a tree, it was content to watch us pass through the alley under it, but it never let us out of its sight.

Isaac was muttering a constant string of nonsensical phrases and I was doing my best not to hyperventilate. All I knew was that Derek would be super pissed if I got Isaac killed, and every documentary I'd ever watched said that if a predator wasn't acting hostile to you, it would probably be best to just calmly put as much distance between you and the creature as possible and try to quickly and calmly get to safety.

That's all I focused on now. The creature followed along the top of the building until we reached the mouth of the alley and then it was forced to either stop or leap off and follow us on foot.

"Do you trust me?"

"What?" Isaac said, unable to tear his gaze away from the creature that was hissing now, growing agitated.

"Isaac!" I snapped.

He looked at me.

"On the count of three, walk into the street."

"What?" He looked out at the street. "There's traffic!"

"Walk into the street!"

"That's crazy! Let's just run!"

"No! Isaac! Ready? One.." We tightly gripped the goat head. "Two…" The animal let out a reptilian growl above and I called, "Three!"

In unison, we swiftly swung the giant head and passed between traffic. A car slammed on its breaks at the last second, tires squealing and horn blaring, and the sudden onslaught of noise startled the creature on the building and it hissed loudly and retreated.

Isaac was freaking out about the traffic and pulling me along but I watched the creature turn until its tail disappeared from view. We stepped onto the sidewalk and stopped to take deep, panicked breaths.

The traffic slowly started up again and we looked up at the top of the building where the creature had been. "We should go," Isaac lowly noted.

I nodded frantically. "Go, go, go!"

xxx

"Too bad it didn't fly down from the building and chew your face off," I countered.

Isaac and I had stopped musing about the species of the creature half an hour ago. Since then, we've traded insults nonstop and sipped on smoothies from the cooler. It was the bottled brand and they were lukewarm but the sugar did wonders for our nerves.

The insults started innocently enough, but they'd devolved into a petty little childish competition in about two minutes flat. So far, we were tied.

"Too bad the car didn't keep going and flatten you like a pancake," Isaac said.

"Too bad you didn't drop Keystone George in the middle of the street on your feet and get hit by that semi truck."

"Too bad you didn't cut your hand on his badge and get tetanus and die."

"Too bad—"

The door of the depot opened. Derek walked in and abruptly stopped, his jacket only half shrugged off his shoulders, frozen mid-step. He frowned deeply, transfixed by the head that sat between us.

"What… the hell… is that?"

I looked down at my bottle, lifting it up. "Smoothies! Remember? We got them at the store."

Derek snapped his gaze to me and I grinned in delight at the glare I received. "Lainey…"

"Ohhh, you mean him." I reached out to pat Keystone George, who was propped proudly on top of Derek's crate. I'd moved my mom's urn into my trunk while Isaac had stopped to use the restroom when we returned. "This is Keystone George!"

"Why?" He bluntly asked. "Why—where? Where did you get it?"

"The donut shop on Maple Street!"

Isaac sipped loudly at his smoothie and tried to remain indiscreet. He shrank at the potent glare Derek briefly turned onto him. Derek focused on me. "Why?"

"They abandoned him," I pouted. "It was sad."

Derek paused at the news, rolling his eyes as he processed it, and turned away to pinch the bridge of his nose. He sighed heavily. "Oh… Okay. Whatever. I don't have time for this."

I leapt from my seat to trail after him as he passed through the cart. He threw his jacket over to his seat and stripped his shirt off. I hummed in appreciation and he ignored me. He immediately went to town on the punching bags, and I noticed that he didn't even glance at the patches of duct tape, meaning he'd long since discovered them.

I cleared my throat and crossed my arms as he punched. "So… there's more."

He huffed and glanced at me briefly, looking annoyed. "What?"

"I don't really know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it." I paused and put my hands out. "Giant lizards."

He stopped punching to look at me strangely. "What?"

The way he said it led me to believe that he genuinely had no clue what I was talking about. "Giant… lizard people."

"This again," Derek rolled his eyes and it took a moment for me to realize what he meant.

"What? No! No, this isn't that! I don't mean the Reptilian Elite! Or—maybe I do. Oh my god! Maybe it was!"

He ignored me.

"It was real, Derek! I'm serious! We saw a giant reptile on top of a building by this club! It was just staring down at us and we had to walk into traffic to get away from it and it had these eyes—ugh, the eyes were beady and orange and reptilian. Nightmare eyes!"

"Lainey," Derek said, causing me to stop and look at him. "I don't have time for this!"

"Derek, I get it. I really do. You think I'm trying to annoy you or you think I think I'm being funny, but I'm not. This time I'm not."

He frowned. "What?"

I gestured behind me. "The goat head was a stupid idea. It was dumb, I get that. We were bored, it was spur of the moment, but just forget it, okay? Forget everything else. There was a creature in the middle of downtown Beacon Hills and it… I don't know!"

"Well _you're_ the expert on lizard people," He shrugged. "Why don't you call Louis C.K. and ask him?"

I gawked at him as he brushed around me. He went past the obstacle course and after a short moment I stormed after him. I followed him and waved my hands around as I spoke. "You don't believe me!"

He didn't respond and I scoffed loudly. He took the stairs to the office two at a time and tried to outrun me, slamming the door shut as he stepped in, but I threw it open before it could close and it slammed into the wall.

"What will it take? What would it take for you to believe me? Isaac was there! Would you believe him?"

"No," Derek plainly said, sounding bored as he went to a corner in the office and opened up what I just realized in that moment was a cabinet he used as a wardrobe. He pulled out a clean shirt and pulled it over his head.

"Then what would it take?"

"A lizard person to walk up to me and say, 'Hey. I'm real.'"

"That would never happen, Derek," I bitterly informed him, my fists clenched tightly. "It would just hiss at you and probably attack."

He snorted, leaning against the filing cabinet to wait for me to make some interesting point. He shrugged at me. "Okay."

"You know what?" I exclaimed. "I'm going to track that stupid thing down! I'm going to go hunting for it tomorrow and snap a picture of it!"

"Yeah," He said, stepping close enough to put his face in mine. My mouth dried up when his nose almost touched mine again. "You do that."

He brushed past me and I watched him stride to the door. "Ugh!" I growled after him, and chased him down the stairs.


	12. Chapter 12

My hand shielded my eyes from the sun as I tilted my head back to look at the top of the building, hand on my hip. It must be around forty feet high. That's say that's how high they built the Statue of Zeus.

I could picture Derek's face perfectly if he could see me hesitating. He would chase me up the building in one minute flat and then probably tell me to jump back down and go again by myself. I bounced on my feet and shook my thoughts off, trying to psych myself up.

Finally, I began to search for ways to start the climb. This was the building Isaac and I had seen that creature lurking on yesterday. The building itself might have been an apartment complex or an office building, I wasn't sure. It was nondescript and made of brick.

I returned to the dumpster that we'd passed yesterday, but it didn't make a mechanical whir, and I thought maybe it had actually been a noise from the creature that I'd somehow misinterpreted as mechanical. It was just an ordinary, ugly, dirty dumpster. Great for boosting though.

I pushed it over to a window and looked around. It was midmorning and no one was at the club next door. I knew it would be a while before anyone ventured this direction, so I grabbed the top of the dumpster without feeling the need to be sneaky or covert as I climbed up.

The lids bowed and threatened to cave so I took a large step, jumped up, and grabbed the top of a window frame. I pulled myself up and stuck close to the wall, my feet turned sideways to fit on the cement window frame that I stood on. Whether from exertion, adrenaline or purely fear of slipping and falling, my heart pounded fiercely in my chest.

I looked up and reached on my tiptoes to grab the next frame, and the ascent was under way. Occasionally there would be a window that was slightly ajar and it made the process of hoisting myself up significantly easier. By the time I reached over the edge of the roof and pulled myself over the ledge, I was surprised to find that I wasn't even the least bit out of breath; another mark of the impact that Derek's relentless training had on my physical capabilities.

I rolled onto the roof and straight into a crouch. Some birds that were perched on the skylights nearby squawked in surprise as they flapped away from the unexpected flurry of movement that came from my corner of the roof.

Sounds of the street below distantly reached my ears. It was quiet up this high, so far removed from the cars and traffic four stories down. I strained my ears to listen for any errant hisses or growls, but there was nothing. Not even the hiss from the steam of a manhole.

In fact, in the pretty morning light from the sun, it looked harmlessly picture perfect. There was a strong breeze that tousled my growing hair and carried various scents from all over the city—the constant stench of gutter water and trash, the numerous appetizing scents of cooked meats and baked goods that drifted out of open restaurant doors and street vendors, and the distinct marked scent of burning cigarette.

The familiar weight of my phone in my hand made me feel like I was actually doing something productive as I opened the camera and began to take a video.

I was officially convinced that this must be an apartment building because when I peered through the surprisingly clean skylights I could see what looked like someone's living room below. Feeling like a peeping tom, I quickly jerked back with my camera up and felt inexplicably guilty, like there'd been someone sitting on one of the couches that happened to look up and catch me filming through their windows. There had been no one, of course, but still.

It was bizarre to stand at such a high point of the city with my newly heightened senses. Since the full moon, I'd developed the ability to stretch my hearing disgustingly far. For example: presently, I could hear someone, somewhere, scratching their skin. I had no way of knowing who it was, where they were, or even where they were scratching. I cringed and tried to ignore the sound, turning the camera to a new part of the roof that had graffiti spray-painted across it. I couldn't read what it said.

I could hear a car door closing and the sound of the car key being inserted into the ignition, and I flinched at the subsequent blare of music that came from the radio. I could hear and alarm going off somewhere. I could hear the sound of someone's shoes brushing across the ground as they shuffled up a set of stairs. Also, I could smell potent weed coming from somewhere within the building—likely one of the apartments on the highest level.

All of this and I couldn't detect any trace of the creature. I wasn't sure what I was expecting to find up here, but it just looked like a mundane apartment rooftop.

There was even a cement block that was used to prop the rooftop door open. Presumably this allowed some 'edgy' residents to escape to the roof and sneak a cigarette. Or maybe someone had been up here before I left and propped the door open to grant them a quick return.

If this was a cartoon, an exclamation point would have popped over my head. I stood up straight and stared at the ajar door, the faint trickle of panic bleeding into my frustration at the lack of evidence I'd found.

I then realized that the sound of the feet climbing stairs was actually coming from behind the door. No sooner had I made the connection than the door was being pushed open by what looked like a janitor. He wore that tacky grey jumpsuit with a patch blandly stating his name in cursive, _Henry_ , and had thinning red hair that mostly seemed to cover his chest and arms where his sleeves were rolled up.

He had yet to notice me. He reached into the breast pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and all I could do was stand there, rooted to the spot in shock and panic, as he brought the cigarette to his lips and lit it up. I realized that Henry had a bucket dangling from his wrist with a rag hanging over the side, and he puffed on the cigarette between his lips and grabbed the rag and turned towards me.

He looked up and froze when he saw me. Instantly, he frowned. He looked back at the door he'd propped open in confusion and then looked back at me, and for a fleeting second we just stared at each other. He puffed some smoke and the wind immediately snatched it away.

Before he could speak I turned and darted to the edge of the roof, yelling something unintelligible that was a product of my embarrassment and a half assed apology. Henry shouted at me and I heard the bucket bounce on the ground of the roof and I grabbed the ledge and flung myself over.

Wind whipped at my hair as I free fell, my arms wind milling and it was like everything slowed down. Forty feet suddenly seemed stupidly high to dive off and the dumpster grew bigger and bigger until I was right over it and then my whole body smacked into the lids.

I bounced and crashed straight through the lids and fell into the trash inside and groaned, hearing vague exclamations from the janitor who was now peering over the ledge of the roof over head. If I was cooler, or if this was actually a movie made for Hollywood, I would have ran and leapt off the building and disappeared forever from Henry's life without a trace. Like Batman.

As it was, he peered over the ledge down at me, and there was no dramatic music swelling to add suspense, and I wasn't clinging to the top of the ledge by my pinky waiting for him to pull me back up. There was just me. Me and a chubby janitor who thinks he witnessed a girl commit suicide. Henry finally stopped yelling at me and I could hear him hold his breath. I groaned and moved my hand and he sighed and swore loudly in relief.

"Hey—you okay?" He called, and I bitterly choked out a stuttering laugh. "Hey, what the hell are you doin', anyway? Do I need to call the cops?!"

Putting my hands against some of the trash bags, I winced at the stench and various unidentified liquids that seeped onto various parts of my body. There was a pair of twisted, stinky jeans and bags of what smelled like used toilet paper, and discarded food containers and used cat litter that spilled out of a bag and onto my lap.

"Ugh, fuck's sake…" I groaned and waved dismissively up at Henry, whose head had momentarily disappeared from view before popping back with a phone pressed to his ear.

"Yeah, she just jumped off the damn roof!" He yelled into his phone.

I felt around for my cellphone. It had fallen out of my hand and landed deep between some trash. When I picked it out, there was a slimy piece of lettuce that stuck to the screen. I cringed and smacked it off. As I turned it over I realized the video was still recording, capturing my sad, sad appearance. I sighed at my face, my hair askew with something smeared on my cheek, and shut the video off in embarrassment.

Henry still blabbered into his phone as I grabbed the side of the dumpster, rolled, and dropped onto the pavement in the alley.

"Nah! She was trespassin', I said! But now she's leavin'! What? No! She's fine—" He stopped to snort. "She landed in the dumpster! She's fine. Gross, but fine."

Limping down the alley, I muttered under my breath and clenched my fist to keep from flipping Henry the bird.

xxx

"You smell like puke and sriracha."

I glared up at Angie. "The gym is my next stop."

"Oh, good, add some sweat into the mix, that'll really help," She mocked.

"For the _showers_ , you jack ass."

She smirked. "I'm not sure that those little dispensers of soap will be enough."

I grit my teeth as she continued to tease, clearly having too much fun to stop even though I was glaring daggers at her.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think I'm gonna have to make you eat in the back. You're distracting the customers."

We turned to see a couple that frequently looked over their shoulders to give me disgusted looks. I sighed heavily. "You know what? I'm kind of in a rush, I need to meet Derek soon and I have some other things to finish up first. Could you just bring me a couple of breakfast burritos to go?"

"Yeah, why don't you wait at the counter?" She pulled at my sleeve to get up. Angie cast the couple a forced, awkward smile and gave me another nudge as I stood to leave because apparently I wasn't moving fast enough. "Go!"

"You're not getting a tip!" I grumbled, straightening my jacket.

"Elaine!" She exclaimed, covering her mouth. Her eyes were wide as she looked away from a balled up, sticky condom that had apparently been stuck to the bottom of my boot until just now. It was smeared across the tiled floors and Angie pushed me out of the way to scoot it under a table. "Get out! Go!"

I put my hands up and apologized through surprised, darkly amused chuckles, allowing her to shove me past the counters and towards the door. Digging into my pocket, I threw some money at her as she elbowed me out the door and snatched the wad of cash from me. "Sorry!" I winced with a grin and a shrug.

She shook her head and muttered something unintelligible at me through clenched teeth. I caught the wayward word _nasty_ and snickered to myself. I took a breath and wandered onto the sidewalk to wait for my burritos.

If I was an oversized lizard, where would I hide?

My eyes wandered to a sewer grating and I stared at it for a moment before shaking myself off and shaking my head.

Nope. No way. I'm not going down there. No freaking way.

xxx

Isaac laughed at me. I stared at him. He stopped, his smile falling. "Wait, you're serious? A janitor really called the cops on you?"

"Yes!" I snapped. He smirked and I scowled. "It's not funny!"

"Actually, it's pretty funny," He countered. "How did you find me, by the way?"

I shrugged. "I knew you'd be at school. I found you here."

"You… tracked me?" He asked, looking like he couldn't decide if he felt impressed or violated. It must have ended up being some strange mixture of the two because he watched me for another second and then looked away. "So you can't track a giant reptilian mutant, but you can find me at lacrosse practice?"

"Dude!" I threw my hands up. "Say it louder for the people in the back!"

We turned to look at his teammates, who kept trying to sneak surreptitious glances in our direction. They whirled around and tried to look busy when they realized they were caught spying, suddenly very interested in the balls at their feet.

"My bad," Isaac admitted, turning back. "Why is your hair wet?"

I reached into my pocket and flashed my new gym card at him with a dazzling grin. "Showered."

He made a noise of approval, but then his eyes fell down to my feet. "And why do your boots smell so bad?"

I sighed loudly. "Ugh, don't ask. I've had a rough morning."

Isaac seemed to want to elaborate, but he shrugged it off. "Anyways, I guess you didn't find anything on the roof, or else you'd be gloating at Derek instead of stalking me at practice."

I glowered at his choice of words. "That would not be an inaccurate guess," I sniffed haughtily, my nose turned up.

He raised an eyebrow and laid his wrist over the top of his lacrosse stick like it was a cane. "Do you have a plan to get a picture of this thing?"

"Of course I have a plan," I snapped. He stared at me, unconvinced.

I glanced at his teammates as they ran around doing various exercises. The coach had noticed me speaking to Isaac, but Isaac must not be an important enough player to really register with the coach because he didn't seem to care that he was slacking off and talking with me. And I don't mean that the coach seemed chill. I mean it seemed like he was neglecting a large portion of his players to focus on a choice few.

There was, however, one boy who seemed very interested in our conversation.

I grabbed Isaac's arm and pulled him closer. "Don't look, but there's someone watching us." He turned to look and I smacked his shoulder. "Dude!"

"Yeah, that's Scott. He usually minds his own business. I don't know why he's staring at us..." Isaac looked troubled, that paranoia that I'm so used to seeing coloring his features again.

"Scott? As in Scott McCall?"

Scott was staring openly at us now.

Isaac shrugged. "Yeah."

I turned around and narrowed my eyes at the kid, who was frowning at me as the coach barked something in his ear. He flinched when the coach smacked the back of his helmet and loudly tapped at his clipboard, yammering about Scott learning some play he'd concocted.

"Maybe he thinks you're hot," Isaac suggested with dry humor, and I scoffed. Scott's head jerked and he looked away sharply, suddenly engaged in whatever the coach was saying. Isaac snickered and looked from Scott to me with vague interest. "What does it matter?"

I shook my head. "Tell you later. Anyways, are you in?"

"To go hunting for a—"

"Snipe!" I shrilly interjected. "Snipe hunting."

Isaac made a face of confusion. I looked at him with wide, meaningful eyes, and he glanced over my shoulder at Scott again before his eyes slowly trailed back to me. He closed his mouth and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Okay, I guess."

"You're in?"

"Yeah."

I clapped his shoulder and beamed. "Atta boy!"

He batted me away. "Don't do that," He grumbled. "I hate that."

"All right, I gotta go. See you tonight?"

"Do I have a choice?" He asked, and I grinned widely as I backed away across the grassy field.

"Not really, no. I was trying to be polite."

He waved me off.

xxx

I pulled the binoculars down. "Where is he? Is that him over there?"

Derek stood beside me with his hands in the pockets of his black, smooth leather jacket. I noticed the way the pocket on his chest was unbuttoned and the top dangled loosely and I was struck with the urge to fasten it shut.

I looked away and peered through the binoculars again, watching Allison Argent being escorted across the graveyard by her parents, who each kept a tight hold of her arms and flanked her like body guards.

"They're acting like she's about to run off," I muttered. "I don't get parents like that. Wouldn't that just make her want to leave more?"

"Are the binoculars really necessary?" Derek asked.

"This is a prop," I said. "If anyone asks, we're bird watching. There's a nest of blue jays in that tree over there." I pointed over to a tree not far off and Derek looked with fake interest. He gave me an unimpressed, wry look, and promptly ignored me.

I stepped closer to him in the woods as I continued to babble at him. "I have back-up plans for my back-up plans, here, Derek, and you really should be taking notes." I held the binoculars out to show him. "They have roof prisms!"

"What?" He frowned.

I pointed at a spot in the lens and shoved it under his nose. "Prisms!"

He pushed them away with a sneer. "Yeah, that's a great excuse. We chose to _bird_ watch right next to the graveyard during a service for a high profile family in Beacon Hills."

"Wait, wait—shhhhh! Something is happening…"

Derek looked away from the family gathered around the casket to glare at me. I ignored him and watched as the paparazzi turned their backs and began to converge on someone approaching just out of our view.

"So _those_ are the hunters?" I asked. "The Argents? They look… rich." Derek snorted. "Is that woman actually wearing a fur coat? Nice earrings, Cruella Deville!" He hushed me, though he looked somewhat entertained. I stepped closer to catch a better glimpse. "Is that Gerard?"

Derek grabbed my sleeve and yanked me behind the tree we stood near, making me gasp. He was right in front of me and a stick from a low hanging branch dug into the back of my neck, preventing me from leaning back.

I could smell the soap on his skin and he kept one hand on the side of my waist, moving me away from the branch to push me firmly against the tree as if to hide me better. My heart hammered in my throat and I looked away to the woods behind him.

"I can't—"

"Shhhhh," He hissed. He splayed his fingers widely along my side, his thumb pressing into my ribs just under my bra. I raised an eyebrow.

"De—"

"He just grabbed one of the paparazzi's cameras."

"What?" I leaned forward and his knee went between my legs as I tried to maneuver myself to crane my neck around the side of the trunk and catch a glimpse. "Who did?"

"Gerard. Stop it, you'll get us caught." Derek took me by the shoulder and shoved me back against the tree, trapping me tightly in place. I held my breath and tried not to move. If I would just turn my head a fraction of an inch, the stubble of his short beard would brush my cheek.

I couldn't think clearly when he was holding me like this. Derek didn't even seem to be aware of his actions; he just continued watching the Argents. "Why is he back? Kate's dead. Does he think he can change things now?" He wondered aloud, and shook his head and sighed. His breath swept down my arm, making me shiver despite the heat he radiated. "It doesn't make sense…" Was he aware that he practically had me pinned to the tree using his hips?

Could anyone see us? If any of those numerous people gathered near the gravesite looked in this direction, what would they see? No, I knew they wouldn't see us. Derek would make sure of it. That was the whole point of the position we were in. I was torn from my thoughts when he pressed me, almost possessively, to the tree and blocked me further from view.

I opened my mouth to suggest some much needed personal space and Derek's hand braced against the trunk beside my head so he could lean forward and get a closer look. Our torsos were now pressed firmly together, and if I warped my arms around his neck we would be embracing. My lips pursed and I dug my nails into the tree trunk as he shifted, and his knee climbed dangerously high between my legs.

He shifted and I gasped and my hand shot up to clutch his shoulder. Derek's head snapped down and he froze, reaching up to grip to my thigh as if by instinct, and now that he knew what he was doing and didn't immediately lunge away the whole thing took on a different tone.

Our eyes met and the heat that pooled in the lower part of my stomach was sudden and left me breathless, dizzy, and the hunters at the viewing for their dead relative behind us was the farthest thing from my mind as Derek's green eyes sharpened intently and trailed down to focus on the front of my shirt.

"Isn't that the shirt you wear to sleep in?" He asked, the words slow and somehow warm as he drew them out. I had changed juste before this when I met up with Derek at the warehouse, but he was so convinced we would be late he didn't pause to notice what I wore on the way here. He noticed now.

I swallowed thickly, lifting my gaze to meet his, and to my shock, my stomach fluttered. I had to look away and I glared at that stupid pocket on his jacket. "Yeah, it's—it's my favorite."

He looked back down at it and his palm was hot through the thin fabric of the shirt as he felt along under my jacket. I bit my lip to keep from sighing, placing my hand on his shoulder as he spread his hand from the front of my stomach around to my back, pulling me flush against him.

I clutched his sleeve and my lips parted in shock as he leaned down to press his nose into the neck of my shirt, inhaling.

My heart burst out of my chest and I was wobbly, lost in the sensation of Derek pulling me even tighter against him, against his heat and his muscles. I squeezed his arm and my bit my lip harder as he brushed his nose lightly across my skin, and it wasn't enough.

"Idiots," he muttered, his breath hot where his lips hovered just over the sensitive skin of my collarbone.

"Huh?" I dumbly asked, confused by what he could possibly be talking about right now, and Derek lifted his face.

"Scott and Stiles."

I scrunched my face and gripped him tighter. I wanted to grab his head and drag him back down. "…Oh."

"They were spying behind a headstone but they got caught," He explained, and suddenly his hand on the back of my thigh inched higher, deeper between my legs. I blinked widely and it occurred to me that I should want to slow him down but I didn't. I gripped his shoulder and Derek watched my reactions as he reached around to the back of my upper thigh, just barely brushing against my ass, stealing all the air from my lungs. "Oh well." He looked down at my lips and I anticipated his next move. "They're the Sheriff's problem now."

"What?" I croaked, and shook my head. "Who?"

"Come on." All at once, it stopped. Derek slid back and stepped away from the tree, leaving me cold and shivering and stunned as his boots crunched through the dead leaves. "Let's follow them."

I blinked and stayed glued against the tree, my chest rising and falling rapidly. "What?"

He stopped walking and turned to raise his eyebrows at me. When he saw my dazed, puzzled expression, his face lit with what could only be described as smug satisfaction. "Payback."

My jaw dropped and he turned around to keep walking.

I chased after him. "Wait a minute!" I called, and Derek smirked to himself. "Wait!"

xxx

After… _whatever_ that was back near the graveyard, Derek had proceeded to treat the situation as though nothing happened. As though nothing had changed. But it was a lie. Nothing was the same.

At least from where I stood, everything was different—every look, every slight brush of elbows made me hold my breath in anticipation as I waited to see what he'd do next, and every time our eyes met my stomach would flop and he would look at me just a little too long and my heart would race with a secret thrill. It had changed so fast, and like all chemical reactions, I don't think things can ever go back to how they were before.

We'd been playing with matches and I guess I shouldn't be surprised that sooner or later something was bound to catch flame. It just wasn't supposed to happen so fast. Or be so _strong_.

But if he wanted to pretend it wasn't happening, I wasn't going to be the one to shed light on the situation. This—whatever _this_ was between us—felt like a deep, dark secret, too risky to call attention to, too electrifying to discount, and too new to be named. I'm not known for my subtlety but I thought I could wait if that's what it would take.

After the Sheriff took the boys away, we snuck to a better hiding spot behind a particularly thick tree and watched the Argents mourn their fallen hunter. Kate, Derek said, had been the worst kind of hunter. She didn't live by the code that they were supposed to subscribe to.

"Peter killed her," He explained.

I looked back at the family. Chris sat on a chair near the older gentleman with white hair and I watched as Allison seemed to suppress some pretty raw, tortured emotions, stifling them behind a balled up tissue she held to her nose as she stared at her lap, her chin quivering.

"You know you're going to have to explain the whole thing to me eventually, right?" I suddenly said to Derek, who sighed loudly.

"Not now. It would take too long." He crossed his arms and we watched, as the priest who'd been speaking seemed to draw his speech to a close, and the red head in the fur coat—Victoria—placed a comforting hand on Allison's shoulders. She asked whether Allison still felt up for 'it' and the brunette teenager nodded, took a deep breath, and stood to say a few words.

"But eventually, though," I stubbornly persisted, catching Derek's glare from the corner of my eye as Allison talked about her relationship with Kate and how much she would miss her advice, and more than that, the way Kate could make her feel like she wasn't the baby of the family. Like she was mature, Allison sniffed, and capable of anything.

I saw real pain in the Argents' eyes and I wasn't expecting Derek's face to look so blank when I finally turned back to him as Chris stood next to follow Allison up.

"What is it that you think you should know?" Derek asked in an almost mocking tone, turning his eyes onto me directly.

I didn't expect the hostility. I wondered if the funeral was getting to him after all. I wondered if he'd had funerals for each of his family members, or if he'd had one huge service, and I wondered if he thought of it now. "Give me the SparkNotes! The cliff notes! Anything! I want to know about Peter," I told him, unflinchingly, and Derek's heated glare flickered. "I want to know how Scott became a werewolf if it wasn't by your bite, and why he was here today, and why the Sheriff dragged him off, and how he got tangled up with the Argents, and if it's because they know he's a werewolf. And I want to know why _we're_ here. I want to know why Gerard's return was so huge that you had to come see it firsthand, like he's the antichrist or something. And how did you even hear about it in the first place?"

Derek looked back at the Argents, his jaw tightening as Chris lamented some story about their childhood that earned a few mournful chuckles. "Scott was here because he thinks he's in love with Allison. They met last year and I've been trying to steer him away from all of this ever since, but he thinks he knows better. He thinks since he's special to her that it will somehow matter to the Argents and they'll spare him. It doesn't. They won't.

"To answer your other question, he was bitten by Peter, who was an alpha until last month when I killed him and took his power to become the alpha. This happened immediately after he killed Kate for revenge because she used me to execute her plan to burn our house down with our family inside." He looked at my stunned reaction with the most haunted, dark expression I've ever seen come from someone so young. "The Argents are more or less aware of Scott's status but I'm not sure that Gerard knows yet. It's in Scott's interest that it stays that way because if Gerard finds out he won't hesitate kill Scott on sight. But that's not why he's back. He's back because of Kate's death. Gerard hasn't been in Beacon Hills for years. If he's here it means he's here to clean house. That's probably going to start with me. Which means it affects all of us now."

"What about us?"

"Us?" He asked, an eyebrow cocked.

"Me, Isaac—the betas. Your pack. What about us?"

"We're all targets now," He said, and started to drag me out of the woods. "Come on, they're on the move."

The Argents were standing and grasping hands, embracing, finishing up the viewing. Soon they'd migrate back to their vehicles and they'd scatter through the city to god knows where.

I was trying to stop my head from spinning after that insane story he'd just unloaded on me, despite claiming it would take too long—but I knew there were major details missing and I knew he'd only hit the biggest topics. I might have even been in a little bit of shock. Even after getting all those answers, I only had more questions, but I tapered them off and filed them away for later.

There was one that I couldn't ignore, though. "So why did we come?" I asked. "If they're so dangerous why are we stalking them?"

"I need to know what they're planning," Derek rationalized. We dodged through trees, hurrying down the hill and around the perimeter of the graveyard until we emerged near a back alley where Derek had parked his car.

He suddenly grabbed me and pulled us to a stop.

"Don't make me regret this," He said, and I was about to ask what he meant as he placed something in my hand, but all my words died in my mouth when I saw keys in my hand.

"Wait—seriously?"

"Hurry up," He said, pushing me towards the car. "We need to go by the school and get Isaac."

"Where are the Argents going?" I asked as Derek and I split and got in the car.

He stopped to look at me like it should've been obvious. Then, he said one simple word that sounded strange and out of place and still somehow managed to be ominous in its own right. "Home."


End file.
